Of considerable local interest, today there was tangible evidence for the first time of the Kittiwakes at the Bill actually getting down to breeding: four active nests are visible from the viewpoint north of the QinetiQ fence - of these one certainly has an egg and we presume a second also does as one of the parents was sitting tight this evening; the adults are still only at the stage of standing around on the other two nests. This is the wider view of the cliff...
...these are the four active nests
...and here's a glimpse of an egg as one of the incubating birds has a shuffle.
We're not at all sad to see that the Raven pair involved in nabbing a huge number of Guillemot eggs from the seabird colony during recent breeding seasons seem to have failed to breed this year - one of the adults was hanging around the cliffs looking miserably menacing this evening but without a brood of miscreant youngsters to feed we're hoping he mightn't be quite such a nuisance this year...
...in fact the Guillemots looked to be so chilled about the situation this evening that some of them were leaving their eggs completely unattended for long periods © Martin Cade:
This evening's moonrise - evidently the Strawberry Full Moon in US parlance - was especially stupendous © Joe Stockwell:
