Taken for Granted

The view across Hunts Bay to the limestone headland is spectacular, one of a myriad I can choose round here.  Every few yards along the path the changing angle subtly varies what I see; only a few yards makes such a difference.  Wherever I walk on the cliffs I’m confronted with magnificent vistas; I never tire of living here and fail to understand how some take the coastline for granted.  Emergent yellow gorse contrasts the bare winter browns of bracken and flattened grass, a reminder of how hard this winter has been.  Little grows on these dead looking slopes in early March; a bare canvass that nature will soon paint with washes of greens decorated with multi-coloured flowers insects and birds. 

The choughs are busy again at Bacon Hole; there’s much toing and froing in and out of the cave. It’s not clear if the neighbouring pair by Boscoe Lane will nest, but we sometimes have two pairs each year at this end of Gower.  The peregrines are much in evidence and will start nest building on the cliff face across the Bay very soon.  Stonechats should be singing by now and the pair on the slopes below is the first I’ve seen since the snow.  They suffer from bad winters, but will recover in time.  On the rocky shore it’s still winter, oystercatchers, curlews, turnstones and a few purple sandpipers root through rock pools, and the usual grey heron stands alone.

Daffodils are at their best in sheltered gardens above the cliffs, these warm sunny days with frosty nights have brought them on, and they should produce a blaze of yellow in the next week or so.  Horse chestnuts are one of the first trees to burst into bud, and some south-facing branches have turned bright green, probably this very morning.