Turning point

I’m sitting at my kitchen table, tucking into a cream cheese bagel. The back doors are open and warm sunlight floods the room. The soundtrack to my lunch is a skylark singing, its endless song carrying from nearby fields.

Reaching this point in the year feels like crossing the finishing line after completing the marathon that is getting through the winter. Somewhere in the middle of it, we moved house – on the coldest, crispest day there was. It took the new place about a month to overcome the lingering chill even with the heating on. Apart from that day, and a handful of others, the rain this winter was unrelenting. It was needed; at the end of last summer’s drought, the reservoirs were like puddles. Now they are back to full capacity. But now the fields have become reservoirs as well. So have the roads and the river estuaries. Winter crop yields have suffered, we are told. Cliff paths have been volatile, the edges crumbling frequently.

Spring has limped in slowly and meekly. Hearing the first chiffchaff singing – in the new garden, no less – felt like cause for celebration. However, there were a few winter wins. I discovered purple sandpipers in Newquay, a new bird for me. Seals are reliable all year round, once you know where to look for them. There seemed to be strong numbers of redwings. And my new garden bird list already has a few stars – a blackcap in the first week; a flock of long-tailed tits that visited once, and a male sparrowhawk.

Purple sandpipers (the smaller, grey birds), alongside turnstones (white & brown plumage) and oystercatchers (larger, black and white birds)

Today, the sun encourages us out to visit St Agnes, on the hunt for the stunning emperor moth. Despite being the school holidays, last week’s continuation of rain (at times torrential) seems to have driven everyone away, and the coast path is eerily quiet for such a fine day – aside from the choughs, which are courting noisily, and tiny wrens and linnets somehow making their songs heard above the brisk wind. Wildflowers are blooming; I identify a dainty pink-petaled plant as common lousewort, a lacklustre name considering its prettiness. In a sunny clearing within the heather and gorse, we find a common lizard basking. An hour’s search does not unveil any emperor moths this time, but there is still time, with their breeding season ending around mid-May. We’ve found them here before and will likely return before summer for another attempt.

Common lizard

Singing to the storm

There is a howling storm today with lashing rain and strong winds. The blackbird is on the garden fence, courageously singing to the storm at the top of his voice, as if trying to frighten it away.

Dawn Chorus

It’s International Dawn Chorus Day, and I happen to wake at five o’clock to the sound of a blackbird performing a powerful solo. Some jackdaws, starlings and gulls join the chorus. It’s frosty again, but only lightly. I wait until the sun is up higher before venturing to the headland again to take a stroll with my camera. In the short period since I was last here, hundreds of bluebells have flowered. They look strange nestled amongst the frosty nettles, a collision of winter and spring. 

Frosty nettles and spring bluebells

The reed beds and shrubs (which are bedecked in curtains of lichen) are bursting with the songs of dozens of warblers – reed, sedge, blackcaps and chiffchaffs. I am careful not to stop for too long and only to take pictures of birds that land and sing directly ahead of me so as not to cause too much disturbance to these sensitive species. I head down to the little beach and sit watching the waves for a time – the tide is nearly in, so I don’t explore the rockpools much. Then I climb the cliff and sit on a bench at the top near the cliff edge favoured by rabbits, all the while keeping an eye on the sea for dolphins or seals. I don’t see any of those, but a male kestrel suddenly floats up from the cliff edge below my feet. Seeing me, he quickly swerves and tears away towards the farm. I also notice that when gulls swoop too low over the cliff, the rabbits startle momentarily, heading towards their burrows. But when the danger has passed, they relax and resume their peaceful nibbling and grooming. Below, an oystercatcher is making frantic piping calls, while behind me, several skylarks sing from on high. When I get home, I realise I haven’t thought about my day to day human problems for the entirety of the morning. Mindfulness done at home is an effort and not always a success, but, if fully captivated by nature, it happens easily and unwittingly.

Robin

Garden visitor

It was exciting to see a blue tit pay a visit our garden today, a bird I haven’t recorded here before. He hopped over the wall, perched on the washing line and then vanished again. I have noticed how our small, young trees are growing larger and filling out. I think the blue tit is evidence that they will come to accommodate more birds as the years pass (especially as so many residents locally have installed artificial grass and made their gardens wholly unwelcoming to wildlife, but it’s a bittersweet thought that birds may favour our garden because of loss of biodiversity elsewhere). It won’t just be sparrows forever. That said, the sparrows alone are interesting to watch; they’ve been active this week, also enjoying perching in the developing trees, particularly the rowan which is strategically placed next to the bird feeders to provide a bit of cover, although it currently only stands at about 1.2 metres. There is a rose in the garden covered in whitefly, but the sparrows are also doing a great job trying to eat as many of them as possible so we’ve just left it as it is. On this morning’s walk down the farm track I heard a couple of sedge warblers chattering and an out of sight curlew calling.

Restless

A blackbird here has been singing continuously throughout the day, starting from five o’clock this morning and still singing now as the light starts to fade again. His song is so loud, it’s impossible not to hear him from any part of the house, and the variations in the melody – repetitions, flourishes and impressions of other birds – are seriously impressive. I’m just left wondering whether he’s actually going to eat or sleep at all today.

Although the weather remains cooler than average, the wind has dropped to a light breeze and the hazy sun and still, mild air made for a very pleasant walk at the beach this morning, overlooking a rippling turquoise sea. It looked inviting, but the red flags were out; that didn’t stop some of the surfers, though. It also didn’t stop a grey seal, which was lazily skirting the rocks around the headland, occasionally dabbling for fish, at total ease in the restless water.

Blackbird singing

I woke up at 6 this morning; it was still dark, but a blackbird was singing outside. Alone – a burst of melody, then a pause; then another burst, another pause. I thought I also heard a great tit at one point, which would be a first for our road – our garden list currently is blackbirds, sparrows, woodpigeons, pied wagtails, collared doves, goldfinches, the odd wren, robin and summertime swallow, and a few corvids. We had a rock pipit when we first moved here but it disappeared after a couple of months, very much not a garden bird. 

Today we walked at the beach and the sun was out and the breeze was mild. The skylarks had resumed their singing after a week of silence brought on by the cold weather. When we turned up in the car we were greeted by a jackdaw perched on a nearby fence post, observing us curiously. Turnstones scurried across the clifftops as we headed towards the beach. Gulls, including a great black-backed, soared on the wind overhead. The waves still carried the weekend’s storm, foaming and thrashing; but the difference today was that we could sit and watch them without getting cold.