A beautiful morning, with the sun blazing out of a sky of perfect blue, with a single wisp of cloud frozen high overhead.
Swallows and Martins twitter as the pass by – still just a trickle of birds which will build to a flood over the next month as birds prepare to migrate.
Other signs of the turning summer include a handsome male Redstart in the meadows, and a Nightjar, ringed early this morning on it’s way through. Grasshopper Warblers, Willow Warblers, Whitethroats and Lesser Whitethroats are all gathering in the scrub, trying to ‘pile on the ounces’ ready for the long journey ahead.
Hedges and scrub are covered with crimson Dog Rose hips and Hawthorn berries, dusky, midnight blue Sloes on Blackthorn and glossy, ripening Bryony berries. Among them, Long-tailed Tits, Greenfinches and Goldfinches bustle and feed.
Near the top of the Lighthouse Field, I was fascinated to find a single plant of Chicory – a pretty plant with intense Cornflower-blue blooms rarely seen at Durlston (and never before in the Lighthouse Field as far as I know!).
A great morning for butterflies and moths, with sightings including Jersey Tigers, Hummingbird Hawk-moths, Red Admirals, a single sulphurous Clouded Yellow along with lots of Large and Small Whites and Holly Blues.
Flowers galore on the downland, from purple Woolly Thistle and Greater Knapweed, to pink Wild Thyme and Restharrow, yellow Ragwort and Lady’s Bedstraw and tiny white and pink Squinancywort, along with Autumn Ladies Tresses – our final orchid of the year.
Above the Lighthouse Field, a Kestrel hangs in the air, so still she looks as if she has been painted on, with the keening of a Peregrine Falcon echoing up from below the cliffs.