Tuesday May 1st

Happy May Day! Bristol Morris Men were up dancing on Castle Green at sunrise, 5.42am, this year was beautiful and very warm. Even the plane trees around St Peters are in full leaf. We had three sides out this morning, 20+ men and a small audience (which initially included herring gulls). Around 7am we all repaired to the Hope and Anchor for breakfast and beer. We will be dancing at various Primary/Junior Schools during the day.
I cycled to town for the dancing, then came back via the pub and then the Peregrine Watch. It was very quiet up there, with the morning sun coming from directly behind, and a high tide. No peregrines, and very few other birds apart from gulls and jackdaws.

Sunday April 29th

This morning: a cormorant, some mallard, a couple of buzzards and a view of four of the raven chicks, one of them venturing out onto a rock ledge some feet from the nest. Meanwhile one of the parents was circling high above the cliff, no doubt keeping an eye open for other birds of prey. I'm told that there are five raven chicks, but could only see four through the binoculars. A report in today's Observer says that raven are very intelligent, up with apes and dolphins. Finally, everyone was brought to their feet by a really high speed swoop into the gorge by one of the peregrines. I think it was probably the male showing off. Meanwhile, log in to the amazing CONE project in California and shoot yourself some finches! See: http://cone.berkeley.edu/camera