Late afternoon I have driven to Park Head for a walk in the breezy sunshine that ends an otherwise rather grey and drizzly week. The footpath down to the sheltered cove seems narrower than usual as it is now bordered by sprawling wildflowers – cow parsley, campion, bluebells, and tall pink foxgloves. The songs of warblers fill the landscape: whitethroats, blackcaps, chiffchaffs and reed warblers – they call out loudly, yet these tiny birds remain nearly impossible to see, hidden in dense shrubbery. Over a bridge, and then the lush greenery gives way to the grassy cliff paths. Pale sea campion grows at the edges with an understated beauty that contrasts starkly with the more colourful wildflowers further back.
The soundtrack on the clifftop comes mainly from the half dozen skylarks climbing the wall of blue sky to sing as high up as their small wings will take them. They are not the only ones using the breeze to propel them upwards; a buzzard uses it to hover, steadily scanning the gorse bushes below – it begins to take a dive, but is ambushed by a pair of herring gulls that scream at it, driving it away from presumably a nearby nest. A young rabbit pops up, just in time to see the buzzard soaring away.
A mixed flock of corvids picks through the short grass – smart carrion crows, bossy jackdaws and rooks with ragged wings that rustle as they take to the sky. A wheatear pelts out of the scrub with another hot on its tail; meanwhile, stonechats flick and click and squeak from on top of piles of brambles growing on stone walls. On my path back to the car through fields of long grasses, butterflies including speckled wood and painted ladies rest a couple of seconds on wildflowers – among the jumble of colour, a lone red poppy stands out tall like a crimson soldier.
Then I am back driving along the undulating coast road – still blissfully quiet with only hours to go until an influx of half term holidaymakers – the high summer sun still beating down over the glittering blue sea and beaches dotted with the bright colours of people playing and surfing: this landscape is an antidepressant as good as any pill, yet this remedy is free of side effects or cost.
Moments of Nature 