“Late August, given heavy rain and sun
For a full week, the blackberries would ripen.
At first, just one, a glossy purple clot
Among others, red, green, hard as a knot.
You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet
Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it
Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for
Picking....”
– From ‘Blackberry Picking by Seamus Heaney
Blackberries fill the hedges around the park, although in a less poetic way, my Dad, who introduced me to Seamus Heaney, would say that after the 1st October blackberries were no good to eat as “The Devil pee-ed on them!”, making them fermented and unpleasant.
Badger have also been enjoying the harvest, with numerous Badger ‘latrines’ filled with bright purple poo, and the remains of Sloes and Blackberries found around the park. In the early morning gloom, as I drove up the entrance road this morning, a Fox trotted along ahead of me, before jumping into the hedge with a flick of her tail.
Along the clifftop, some welcome splashes of colour on a grey morning from Sea Aster, with Rock Samphire also in bloom on the cliff edge. Above the Coast Path, the berries of Madder and Bittersweet can also be found, among dancing Tamarisk.
Out at sea, a few Gannets pass by among a steel grey sea covered with racing ‘white horses’, with a Great Black-backed Gull battling the wind, along with a few Herring Gulls.
Into the woodland, and out of the wind, a little more bird life to be found, with Long-tailed Tits, Great, Blue and Coal Tits all seen along the Coast Path. A small flock of Goldcrest heard, then eventually seen high in the canopy near the Aviaries, with my highlight this morning, a Treecreeper scuttling up the smooth trunk of a Sycamore in the Aviary Glade.
In the glade itself, earthworms have been making the most of the weather, with lots of worm casts scattered across the grass and a female Blackbird hopping along, hunting for breakfast.