A wonderful morning for a stroll, to blow away the cobwebs and show our new Ranger, Doug, a little more of the Park.
Given the gusty wind and intermittent rain, not an awful lot on the wing, so a good morning to ‘beat the bounds’ and cover a bit of ground
Stopping in the shelter of the Large Copse, the wind roars through the Holm Oaks and Black Pines overhead, as the rain patters onto the leaves and Grey Squirrels scrabble through the branches. A few fragments of birdsong and calls from within the woodland, including the insistent tune of a Robin, the rhythmic wheeze of Great Tits and ‘tutting’ of a Wren, with the sudden, manic ‘yaffle’ of a Green Woodpecker making me jump!
Elsewhere around the Park, the calls of Blue Tits, Chaffinches and Dunnock heard, with a female Blackbird diving across the path just ahead of us.
As we round the Lighthouse, a spectacular sea smashes against the cliffs at Tilly Whim, with white spray leaping high into the air above the caves and drifting in sheets across the Gully.
Descending into the Gully, a tawny brown Rock Pipit darts across the path just a few feet ahead with a piping call, before diving over the cliff edge.
10 Gannets circle above a raging sea just off the cliffs, wheeling in so close that even without using binoculars it is possible to make out the yellow heads and neat black wingtips, while further out their gleaming white plumage makes them jump out against a steely sea.
Guillemots flicker by, pouring out from the cliffs in their dozens, before circling and returning, as Fulmars spiral around the clifftop on stiff wings, with Shag, Herring Gull and Great Black-backed Gull also seen.
A later seawatch by Hamish added Red-throated Diver, Scoter and a large flock of passing Razorbills.