A mild and sunny start to the day, as spring starts to transform the Park.
Around the meadows, Blackthorn is bursting its buds, with splashes of white just a taste of what’s to come. High overhead, Skylarks hurl their breathless song into a sky dappled with blue and streaked with high cloud, while in the hedgerows, the sweet, repeated notes of Song Thrush and the insistent song of Robins ring out. A noisy gang of 5 Magpies ‘rattle’ as they squabble and flirt above the Large Copse, with the piercing calls of a Goldcrest from among the Black Pines nearby.
Elder is covered with a scattering of fresh leaves, while seemingly in just a few days, Horse Chestnut has gone from sticky brown buds to unfurling green leaves of intense green. Hawthorn is also now covered with leaves of an eye-catching shade.
In the Lighthouse Field, a Roe Deer bounds, loose-limbed up the slope above me, as I stop to examine a patch of flowering Hairy Violet – in just a week or two Violets will cover the downland in a blue carpet. Tall, arched stems of Crow Garlic tower above the shorter grasses, with plenty of the fresh, silvery leaves of Wood Sage, along with the tiny, elegant leaves of Salad Burnet.
No Early Spider Orchids in bloom here yet, though some are coming close (with a few early ones reported in flower on the Wares), but there are plenty of leaves, some with fattening buds almost ready to open.
Along the cliffs, the familiar sound of bathing Guillemots, flapping their wings and rolling around as they bathe, with their soft growls rising up to the Clifftop. 8 Razorbills (much blacker) also bob among the group, with Fulmars carving smooth arcs above them.
At Tilly Whim, a flash of motion catches my eye, with a sudden glimpse of rusty red revealing a Black Redstart skittering across the rocks, with several Rock Pipits hopping around the high clifftop ledges. A Peregrine Falcon scans the cliffside for prey from a perch just below the Observation Point.
A Kestrel hangs in the air above the walling centre, adjusting her position with the tiniest stretches of her wingtips.