It's been a cold week. Cold enough for frost early in the week. Thrushes continued to forage in the Llama fields as the morning sun glinted off frost etched mosses and ferns throwing them in to sharp relief. At the same time the local resident birds were becoming more vocal with Robins ticking, Dunnocks squeaking and Chaffinches and Great tits trying out some longer phrases.
Wednesday morning across the bay at Gwithian and Hayle Towans the sun warmed the damp ground creating blankets of white mist and Carn Brea struggled to make itself seen.
On a couple of mornings this week I've been greeted by a male Black redstart perched on my front fence looking like a Nazi SS officer with a smacked arse. Over the winter I have seen this particular bird everywhere from Back road west all the way up to Higher Stennack.
Up at the Roundhouse pool the dredgers have have been in and vandalised in the name of flood relief. I suppose in the long run it will do it good but I wish they could have been a bit more sympathetic. It now looks like a bomb hole filled with muddy water. However it was brightened by the intense cobalt of a kingfisher flying across the water like a luminous bolt from an invisible crossbow.
At the reservoir the surface was devoid of life but a Woodcock flew over looking like the strange hybrid offspring of Snipe and Owl.
This morning I was greeted by the spectral bridge that a rainbow made over the lane, seeming to have one foot planted in the fields behind Venton Vision and the other appearing to dissolve into the shoreline. Gannets passing at sea briefly turned red, yellow then green as they flew beyond.
On reaching Higher Burthallan I found myself attempting more photographs of Tommy Major's ramshackle old buildings.
Originally built at the turn of the century from local materials, time and circumstance have eroded them and they have been serviced and maintained on the tightest of budgets to evolve with the landscape and continue to be a part of it. Some may think they are ugly but I think they are beautiful.
Approaching Clodgy, which in a couple of weeks will be flashing with the white rumps of Wheatears, and echoing to the jingling of Linnets and chacking of Stonechats, the low sun cast long but definitely not lazy shadows from the granite outcrops and plunged the cliff face in to deep indigo shadow. To the east St Ives sat in glittering silhouette and a Meditteranean gull in almost full summer plumage quartered the little bay between Man head and Clodgy. Accompanied by Black headed gulls and Kittiwakes it stood out stark white against the blue sea yet almost completely disappeared where the blue sky was not reflected.