A stunning winter morning, with a brilliant red sunrise and a sky combed and scraped with trails of orange cloud.
The sea murmurs gently at the foot of the cliffs, with sparks of red light glittering on the waves as the sun rises.
A few gleaming white Gannets glide by in their ones and twos (though yesterday afternoon hundreds were passing by), with little black and white Guillemots flickering past and more streaming out from the cliffs.
Also passing by, Great Black-backed Gull, Herring Gull, Shag and Oystercatcher
Along the clifftop Rock Pipits skitter along – tiny, tawny brown and white birds, as Robin and Great Tit hurl out their songs from the flowering Gorse above the path.
A Peregrine zooms along just below the clifftop, with a boisterous flock of Jackdaws circling and squabbling as a Raven watches from the top of the Mile Marker.
Inland, the boughs of a Black Pine on the edge of the Car Parks contain a busy flock of 7 Goldcrests, their piercing squeaking attracting my attention, and my observation rewarded with a lovely view of their bright gold crests and greenish backs. Above Caravan Terrace more Goldcrests are busy among the Holm Oaks, with a Firecrest also seen among the flock and a brilliant red-breasted, black masked Bullfinch squeaking away among the scrub
Long-tailed Tits bustle fussily along the Drove, with Chaffinches, Greenfinches, Goldfinches, Song Thrush , Dunnock and Blackbird also seen.
At the edge of the Large Copse, a few plants of Winter Heliotrope are in bloom – a rather scruffy-looking pink flower, with a delicious ‘marzipan’ scent. Less delicious, the musk of Foxes in several places around the Park – seemingly a better year after a few ‘bust’ years for this species.