Happy Mother’s Day and welcome to British Summer Time!
I for one was happier being awoken by Blackbird song just before six this morning, as it was an improvement on the five o'clock start! My first wildlife encounter on the park was a Jay sweeping across my path.
Beside the diagonal path several clumps of Hemp Agrimony had spurted into leaf with stems at inches tall destined to grow to become up to two feet tall. Even from here I could hear and see a small flotilla of eight gabbling Guillemots upon the sea. The rising sun reached through the mist and cast a golden beam across the sea. Looking over the cliff edge I was delighted to find Sea Campion showing its fresh white flowers. Yesterday I noted that Greater Periwinkle was in flower near the globe. Despite the scrub clearance the flowers bloomed where the scrub / grassland edge used to be. Today a Herring Gull occupied the Guillemot cave whilst another raft of thirty Guillemots were upon the sea below. Three Fulmars appeared to fly in bouncing arcs off the sea cliffs. Two Shags were seen one flying east and the other west.
At the gully mouth Jackdaws scoured the grassland. Two landed upon Anthills as I walked past whilst another gathered nesting material, in its beak of course! Whilst it was the song of a Dunnock that drew me to visually search the scrub below the rock escarpment, it was the sight of Bullfinch with its rosy breast which excited me. Upon the slope above a male Stonechat perched on top of a clump of Bramble. However, it was a Wheatear with its distinctive eye band which a pleasant discovery! If that was not enough I finally glimpsed my first Swallow of the year as it skimmed through the wildlife garden. Looking to the learning centre roof I saw a Pied Wagtail about the edge of the solar panels.
With that I sped off to the castle to open for today’s Wedding Exhibition.