“Rows and floes of angel hair,
And ice cream castles in the air,
And feather canyons everywhere…” – Joni Mitchell, “Clouds”
A stunning cloudscape as a walked in this morning, with a few high white curls of cloud, adrift in an immaculate blue dome of sky.
Skylarks flutter above the meadows, pouring their cascades of song into the air, while Song Thrushes, Whitethroats, Blackcaps and Chiffchaffs sing from the hedgerows.
The air is filled with the sweet ‘Muscatel’ scent of Elderflower, the bitter tang of Nettles and Bracken and the mingled scents of dozens of different meadow flowers.
Swarms of Common Spotted Orchids dapple the fields, with dark pink Pyramidal Orchids just coming into bloom, with elegant Bee Orchids scattered among them. Seas of blue Pale Flax bob in the gentle breeze, as a tide of tall Ox-eye Daisies sweeps across the fields. Sainfoin is having an excellent year – appearing in many meadows for the first time, alongside the ripening reddish seed-pods and yellow flowers of Hay Rattle.
Yellows are represented by Meadow Buttercups, Rough Hawkbit, Goatsbeard. Meadow Vetchling, Ploughmans Spikenard and Birds-foot Trefoil, with tangles of Common Vetch.
White Hedge Bedstraw is just starting to flower on the downland, where the anthills are covered with Wild Thyme.
As the day gets hotter, butterflies rise up out of the grass, with Small, Large and Lulworth Skippers whirring past. Small Blue and Common Blue flutter above the meadows, with Adonis Blue, Dingy Skipper and a sunbathing Wall also seen this morning.
Along the cliffs, a huge, noisy ‘bazaar’ of Guillemots and Razorbill bobs on the water, as Fulmars sweep gracefully by above them, Jackdaws squabble and dogfight and a few Swifts circle above Durlston Bay.