As the sun peeked through the grey clouds the sight of Swallows swooping across the skies captured the attention, the excitement level was raised as a Merlin arrived, barely larger than the hirundines it was amongst. As I watched this tiny bird of prey a Kestrel floated into view providing the ideal chance to see the differences between them, before the Merlin vanished higher in the sky.
The bushes are now providing an abundance of food, with the fruit of Blackberries, Elder and Haws plus the heavily laden Apple and Pear trees and the small black berries of Madder and Privet.
Flitting through the scrub male and female Blackcaps the most easily spotted, their pale grey fronts showing up while the brown or black caps needed a little more searching for.
The sound of Stonechats drew my gaze to the top of a Blackthorn bush where one of these predominantly brown birds was perched, a coming up the branch was a Willow Warbler, showing a much more green-yellow colouration.
A Common Whitethroat was quickly displaced from its vantage by a Robin, while tumbling over the entire clump of scrub was the ropes of the Wild Clematis and the fronds of Honeysuckle whose flowers are still providing a pungent odour on the early evenings.
No sign (yet) of the Bottlenose Dolphins which were spotted yesterday passing westwards in front of the Globe, hopefully they will return again today.
A patch of lemon yellow Common Toadflax accompanied the white flowers of Yarrow and the dull pink of Red Bartsia and Red Clover while the bright golden yellow of Ragwort is still to be found on the longer grass sections of downland.
A few moths spotted included Large Yellow Underwings, Setaceous Hebrew Characters, a Flame Shoulder and Willow Beauty.
Trotting across the path was a Fox who then wandered into the long grass, its position identified by the occasional sighting of an ear, the tail or the movement of the grass.