Sunday to Tuesday, 15-17th October

Three days to fill in. Sunday was very misty; a brief view of a peregrine as he came in to land on the cliff beneath the peregrine watch, appearing from apparently nowhere across the gorge, and with the characteristic economy of flight. Other birds were two cormorants, mallard, and (probably) black headed gulls in their winter plumage. The Portway was closed for work on the gorge cliffs, but the Downs were very busy with Sunday walkers, runners and cyclists. The activity clears most of the Downs of the crows, rooks, jackdaws and gulls that usually search the grass.
On Monday I arrived at 11.30am, after a long talk with another cyclist at the Sea Walls. We put the World to rights! The cloud layer was very thick, and it became darker and darker, very few birds were about, and the thunderstorm started as I went back over Ladies Mile. By the time I was home I was drenched.
Tuesday, a lot of mud, with a fast river flow, and a nearly low tide, so that rocks were showing in the river bed. Lots of activity with the jackdaw tree well occupied, and many other birds flying around.
Any birds in mid stream were swept down stream rapidly, so that the many gulls (which I still think are black headed), kept to the margins of the mud. A cormorant was perched by the water outflow just upstream from Sea Walls. A pair of herons flew rapidly up river, and low over the water, scattering the gulls as they passed. A few minutes later one returned to join the cormorant. I had not realised how much black there is in a grey heron's back feathers until I saw this pair, and I guess that the view from the top of the cliffs is unusual in giving a full back picture as these large birds fly by. A BBC film, shows just how black they can be. The wood pigeons are usually solitary or in pairs, this morning a flock of more than a dozen were feeding on the Downs grass, looking grey-blue-pink against the green. I caught a brief glimpse of a peregrine heading towards the Suspension bridge, he was probably the reason why a flight of ducks made a rapid u-turn just below the cliff, heading downstream rapidly.