Christine's walking & birds blog

Bits of England are falling off...


Yesterday morning, a dark cloud was hanging low on Beachy Head. I've seen less dense mist on Scottish hills! And yet it was also incredibly windy. It required an effort of will to get out of the car and walk to the bus stop. Vehicles crept past through the gloom, carrying bewildered-looking holiday-makers in shorts and T-shirts.

Greger kept saying "This is it!" until finally one set of headlights really did materialise into the bus. It was surprisingly full. We rolled eastwards along the coast, dropping down out of the cloud to the Cuckmere Valley. We began our walk in bright conditions with twelve little egrets doing a flypast.

Up on the clifftop, on the first of the Seven Sisters, there were peregrines. It was probably too early for small migrants - that, or too blooming windy. I gave up looking for birds and just enjoyed the walk. Then - as we approached Beachy Head, we saw a brownish bird of prey twisting about in the air just beyond the cliff edge.

It perched momentarily on a chalk spur just below; I saw dull brown, Greger said there were rufous tints. We had already seen kestrels over the grassland and bushes, but this bird in comparison was tiny. Consulting all my books, I'd say it was almost certainly a juvenile merlin. Then the clouds rolled in again and we returned to the car and began the long drive home.