Cowslips...and an aggressive crow

The cowslips on Beeding Hill are still looking really good. They favour the north facing slopes of the Downs, but they do need the grass to be kept reasonably short by grazing, which it is here. On the nearby south facing slopes of Anchor Bottom there are hardly any. In fact, at this time of the year Anchor Bottom has few flowers except for some patches of bird's foot trefoil and some milkwort and the like. All that will change in a few month's time when this hillside is covered in downland flowers - at least I hope it will be. I am really looking forward to getting up there again in the summer months and seeing the profusion of flowers and insects that usually cover these slopes.

We were entertained on our walk by a crow mobbing a buzzard. These encounters are usually fun to watch as they often involve some spectacular aerobatics, especially if the buzzard flips upside down to show its talons to the crow as this one was doing. They can go on for quite a long time, but on this occasion the crow broke off attacking the buzzard to have a go at a passing raven. The raven did not seem interested and just croaked rather irritably and flew on. A pity, because ravens' aerobatics can be spectacular.

Grass snake in a flowerpot

Following my close encounter with a slow-worm, Mrs P had an even closer one with a grass snake. It was a juvenile, no more than about 12cm long and it had made its home in a stack of plastic flower pots. She was searching through them when she spotted it wriggling down from pot to pot through the drainage holes in the bottoms of the pots, trying to get away. However, it could not get away through the last pot because it was standing on the ground and I was able to take this photo before we propped the pot on its side in a quiet corner so that it could get away and find a new home. It was a feisty little chap, quite ready to take us both on.

It was not a surprise to find him in the garden as we have had large adult grass snakes here before and we have found eggs in the compost heap on several occasions.

Swifts, Slow-worms and Nightingales

I had to take sharp evasive action this morning to avoid running over a slow-worm which was sunning itself in the track and almost fell off my bike. It had the rather stumpy appearance of one that has lost its tail earlier in its life, so perhaps it makes a habit of sunning itself in the path of oncoming cyclists. It slithered off before I could get my camera out, so here is a picture of one I encountered last year.

Apart from close encounters with slow-worms on the track,one of the great advantages of cycling, especially at this time of the year is that you hear the birdsong, which you miss out on entirely when driving. It has been a good year for nightingales so far, at least it has been for me. I heard two more today bringing my total to eight. They were calling in some scrub by the roadside near Wineham and I was lucky enough to hear them as I cycled past. I caught a very brief glimpse of one of them, which is all you usually get and it took me quite a while to work out how many there were. It can be difficult to tell where the sound is coming from and there were blackbirds, chaffinches, blackcap warblers, a wren and a willow warbler all calling at the same time; very confusing, but in the end I was sure there were two of them, presumably competing for ownership of a fairly small area of scrub.

I saw my first swifts today; about half a dozen of them swooping over the Adur levels. They are the last of the common summer visitors, so their arrival is by way of a minor turning point in the year.

Bluebells

Some of the best bluebell woods are in the Ashurst area, north of Steyning and today they were at their best, helped by the overcast skies which makes the colour seem more intense. In bright sunshine the blue seems to wash out and it is almost impossible to capture on camera. The woodland in this area is mainly hazel coppice with oak standards on a heavy Weald clay soil: ideal conditions for bluebells and they grow tall and lush. There are lots of other spring flowers to be seen in these woods, including Early Purple Orchids which seem to grow extra tall here.

There are always a few deer about and today we saw two Roe and about half a dozen Fallow. Birdsong was everywhere in the morning. We heard blackbird, songthrush, blackcap, chiffchaff, whitethroat and wren. And a cuckoo.