Another still, grey morning, although feeling much warmer and with a few patches of blue sky peeking through the cloud and a horizon shaded into a soft blur of mist above a gently lapping sea.
Streaks of pale silver light are painted across the waves, as Guillemots flicker in and out from the cliffs. On the water below, more Guillemots, including 5 in their tawny ‘winter’ plumage, along with a single ‘winter’ plumage Razorbill – his cheeks dusted with sooty black.
A chorus of excited growls and ‘errrs’ rises up from the ‘bazaar’ of Guillemots, as one proudly swims around, displaying a silvery fish in his beak, before realising his mistake as each bird he passes tries to snatch it from him, until he is paddling around (still holding the fish!), with 3 birds paddling along behind him!
A Peregrine watches from the cliff edge – just a few feet away from me, swivelling her head to stare as I get close enough to see every detail of her grey-brown and white plumage, black and yellow beak and fearsome talons.
Great Tits, Blue Tits. Long-tailed Tits, Chaffinches, Robins and Wrens dart in and out of the tangled scrub along the Diagonal Path, where the musk of a Fox hangs in the still air.
All along the path, yellow-flowered Gorse is in full bloom (worth bearing in mind the country saying that “When Gorse is in flower, kissing’s in season” (Gorse flowers all year round of course).
A Green Woodpecker bobs across Long Meadow, with his distinctive ‘chuckling’ call, as a Raven flaps ponderously by overhead.
Elsewhere around the Park, Greenfinches ‘swee’ from the Sycamore outside the Learning Centre, a Bullfinch darts among the boughs at the edge of the Reservoir Copse, with a Chiffchaff seen in the hedge alongside the Wildlife Area.
A few fungi to be found in the woods, including the unusual pink Jelly Ear and the tiny branches of Candlesnuff Fungus on a dead log