A glorious spring morning, with Skylarks carolling from a clear blue sky and the meadows filled with dazzling, multi-coloured constellations of plants.
Gorse blazes yellow, with the coconut scent of the flowers filling the still air, with Stonechats ‘chatting’ from the branches – their call sounding like 2 pebbles being tapped together.
The scratchy sound of Whitethroats can be heard all over the Park, singing from flowering Hawthorn and Blackthorn bushes, with the keening of a Kestrel heard near Tilly Whim, the harsh ‘cronk’ of a Raven near the mile markers and the accelerating ‘bouncing ping-pong ball’ calls of a Rock Pipit displaying along the clifftop.
New life is emerging all around the Park, with a large family of Blue Tit chicks in our camera box on the wall of the Learning Centre, a family of Great Tits in the box next door, and as I watched, a female House Sparrow carried a beak-full of fluff back to a nest under a corner of the eaves, with the male emerging a moment later. Many plants are covered with the frothy bubbles of Cuckoo Spit, with young Froghoppers hidden inside.
The meadows are a picture at the moment, with an amazing variety of plants in bloom. Meadow and Bulbous Buttercups sway in the breeze, alongside slender blue Pale Flax and the first few Ox-eye Daisies. Around them, the first flowers of Hogweed and Wild Parsnip are starting to open, with Tall Fescue, one of our largest grasses, already 4 or 5 feet high.
Beneath them, more Common Spotted Orchids are emerging by the day, alongside Yellow Rattle, Fairy Flax, Stitchwort, Common Vetch, Lady’s Bedstraw and the weird, parasitic Common Broomrape – it’s stems and flowers a delicate shade of peach. Also in flower, a single, jewel-like bloom of pink Grass Vetchling – the first I have seen in flower this year.
Along the hedgerows, Cleavers is covered with tiny white star-like flowers, with the attractive purple and white flowers of Stinking Iris newly in bloom.
A superb day for butterfly watching with Small Blue, Common Blue, Adonis Blue, Small Copper, Small Heath, Speckled Wood, Wall and Orange Tip all seen this morning.