A member writes: It has been glorious the last few days on Highdown, with views from the Isle of Wight to the Windfarm and Brighton. On a very clear day it is possible to see Portsmouth’s Spinnaker Tower but only at a height from horseback, The Cathedral is easier to pick out. The mass exercising of dogs has ceased and most walkers are behaving. Skylarks are common both high up and when canoodling on the ground. There are several rafts of molehills. On the chalk slopes crows and jackdaws abound with isolated pied wagtails and a redwing in flight. A few goldfinches are around and we are waiting for swallows to return to their old nests in the stables. The badgers’ set along the ridge to Angmering has collapsed and they may have transferred to a second old set near the bottom of Hangleton Lane. Blackthorn for sloe berries and gin later is brilliant. Cow parsley abounds, the first time for years that it has been apparent throughout a winter.
If you walk up the lane, the first field on the right houses two huge hunters, Captain is in retirement and Duke is too difficult to ride. Please don’t feed them, some have tried as shown by carrots thrown into the field.’
So, all nature looks good and as it should be. However, there is something wrong down below; fewer trains, much less traffic on the 259, Honda and Peugeot are sleeping, no jets powering down approaching Gatwick.
……And David Bettiss points us to the web camera on the Peregrine’s nest on the roof of Chichester Cathedral: chichesterperegrines.co.uk