A wonderful rippled cloudscape overhead, with patches of blue sky and lines of bright gold cut through grey cloud – a proper early spring sky!
Around the Park, the chorus of birdsong is swelling each day, with soloists including the repeated sweet notes of Song Thrushes, the jazzy, syncopated rhythms of Dunnocks, the insistent, casual song of Robins, with Great and Blue Tit also in good voice. Beneath them, the sea and wind rumble steadily in Durlston Bay, where a Cormorant flaps steadily by.
The bright green leaves of Nettles look particularly eye-catching in the Dell, while on Caravan Terrace, a few Primroses are starting to appear, with many more around Sunnydale, where the carpet of Ramsons leaves promise some great displays of flowers later in the spring.
Sallows below the Caravan Terrace bridge are covered in fluffy catkins, with a family of Long-tailed Tits bustling among the branches.
Fulmars cut effortlessly through the gusty wind around the cliffs, with 40 or so Guillemots and Razorbills bobbing on the waves below the ledges.
Down at the bottom of the Gully, the banks above Tilly Whim ledge are covered with constellations of white-flowered Early Scurvy Grass, with fresh leaves of Golden Samphire and Sea Beet scattered across the short turf around them.
A Kestrel wobbles on the breeze above the Lighthouse, with a pair of Jackdaws squabbling among the branches of a Sycamore.
Along the Lighthouse Road, Yellow Meadow Ant hills are carpeted with fresh Wild Thyme leaves.
Outside the window as I write, a pair of Blue Tits take turns to inspect the camera box, with a Great Tit investigating the nesting opportunities offered by a Victorian bollard, surveying the view, with just his head emerging from the hole!