All the "W"s

Shooter's Bottom again yesterday...but that's enough about my ailments...at least until I start whinging about my knee again...the one I pulled during my recent cycling exploits and which was giving me some trouble on the climbs.

Anyway we set off on a beautiful Spring day, despite being once again misled by the miserable weather forecasts into expecting a "Railway Film Club" day in front of the telly. We parked near to Birling Gap and walked up through the top of Horshoe Plantation and on to the aforementioned bottom with the Belle Tout lighthouse above us and a lot of tantalising birdsong about. We could hear willow warblers but not see them but there were a lot of tits (great tits and bluetits) a goldfinch or two and an almost unnaturally loud blackbird, broadcasting his melodious tunes through the patch of woodland. For once there was little noise from the road or other humans and in the otherwise silent wood the loud birdsong was a treat.

Emerging into the light again we explored the gorse and scrub of the bottom in a big figure of eight and were rewarded with a lot of sightings of birds singing their hearts out in the sunshine. Mostly these were dunnocks and linnets, with the males very gaudy this time of year. We also had good views of whitethroat, drawn by the slightly scratchy song, and of a nice whinchat obligingly posing for the 'scope and doing her characteristic tail twitching. High above us a raptor was circling which, when it wasn't quite so sillhouetted against the sun, was revealed as a peregrine falcon rather than the more common kestrel. Also in the sky and making rather more noise about it were a number of skylarks.

Feeling the journey had been justified we looked for somewhere suitable for our picnic but no sooner had we cried "seat!", spotting an ideal place in the distance, than it was occupied by a dog-walking man and his son. Eventually we walked back down the second valley and up the other side of Birling Gap, high on the "Seven Sisters" clifftops looking back at the beautiful, but infamous, Beachy Head.

It was a very pleasant picnic, though we had failed to find a place sheltered from the wind, which occasionally gusted making it briefly much cooler. At one point a sudden gust whisked away the top of my picnic box taking it almost over the cliff but at the last second dying away and leaving it inches from the edge. I shrugged and said I would find an alternative but there was no way I was going to risk going that close to the edge. As a native of these parts I am very aware of the risks of a suden gust of wind or the friable chalk suddenly collapsing and moving the edge inland by several feet, indeed the nearby lighthouse had had to be moved inland at enormous cost to stop it toppling into the sea. There was no stopping my birding tutor though and although he minimised the risk by flattening himself and reaching from the longest range possible I had to ask him how he thought I would have felt if he had died retrieving a bit of plastic on my behalf. Nice to have my picnic box intact mind you...

Lying on the bunny-cropped turf looking out over the great white face of the cliff to the lighthouse and the sparkling sea, with a nice cup of tea in hand, we both acknowledged just how much better it was than the days when we had been colleagues sitting in front of computer screens in a dingy office nine to five (and longer).

What with wheatears, whitethroats, willow warblers and whinchat it was as though we had been working through the double-u section of the bird book. In which case I wouldn't really be looking forward to the next trip as much.