Wednesday. Roger Yates and Mandy Leivers were at the Peregrine Watch when I arrived, Mandy on one of her missions to log the Downs fauna. She emailed me after, with a note of some of her "haul". Impressive! A juvenile peregrine swooping low over the Rooks at Sea Walls. A Song Thrush bashing a snail on an anvil. An adult female Green Woodpecker and a juvenile feeding on the lawns below Wills Hall. 13 meadow brown, 11 marbled white and 4 ringlet butterflies at the White Tree roundabout meadow (just been cut). A Kestrel on the Granny Downs. A Weasel at the Dumps.
About a minute after Mandy left us the large brown seagulls appeared again. Roger and I have decided they must be young Greater Black Backed Gulls, probably 2nd year, and there are three, so probably siblings. Yesterday one was playing with a bit of stick.
The three Peregrine kittens were flying around, chasing each other in the quarry opposite. One landed in the Jackdaw Tree to the consternation of the Jackdaws, and on the river we saw two groups of two cormorants on their way to the docks. Roger could hear a Blackcap. So Mandy's sightings show that to the watchful eye, the Bristol Downs are an amazing place for wildlife.
Thursday. A brief glimpse of the Peregrine, but the visit was darkened by finding three bunches of flowers attached to the fence just above the Peregrine nest. Someone had jumped from the cliffs to their death. What can I say?
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