On the cliffs
Sat on Mounts Bay on the edge of the rugged Penwith peninsula and straddling the South West Coast Path, Mousehole is surrounded by the wild beauty of Penwith or Pennwydh in Cornish - meaning “headland at the end”. With plunging granite cliffs, it is home to countless seabirds including Manx Shearwaters, Razorbills, Gannets, Puffins and the ever-present Gulls.
It is also possible to see the Cornish Chough, a bird that appears on the Cornish coat of arms, a bird that was once extinct but that has been successfully re-introduced in recent years on the inland reserves of the Cornwall Wildlife Trust.
The Penwith Moors
Inland there is a mixture of farmland and the Penwith Moors, a designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), is an area of heathland, acid grassland and wetlands peppered with large weather-sculpted granite outcroppings called Tors and is home to such species as the rare Perkins mining and Tormentil nomad bees.
Kemyel Crease
A short walk from Mousehole along the coast path is Kemyel Crease, a conifer plantation of two hectares sloping down to the sea which is split in two by the wandering coast path and that is abundant in summer and autumn with fungi.
The Minack Chronicles Nature Reserve
Further along the coast from Kemyel Crease is the Minack Chronicles Nature Reserve set up by author Derek Tangye in memory of his wife and co-author of the Minack Chronicles Jeannie Tangye.