A rather grey start to the day, with a sky marbled with grey cloud making the few patches of blue and gold all the brighter and a golden ribbon of reflected sunshine cutting through a steel-grey sea.
Scrub is shedding the last of it’s leaves around the downland, revealing Hawthorns covered with an incredible crop of dark red berries, while the remaining Blackthorn leaves are starting to turn a shade of almost sulphur-yellow.
Wild Cherry leaves are starting to turn to shades of vibrant red, while the remaining Horse Chestnut leaves always look magnificent at this time – bright gold, speckled with brown and green.
Goldfinches dart out from the bushes in tinkling flocks to pick over the seedheads of Teasel, Bristly Ox-tongue, Woolly Thistle and Burdock, as a pair of Magpies squabble over something tasty on the trodden ground in front of a water trough.
Overhead, the Woodpigeons hurtle by, their distinctive bulky bodies silhouetted against the sky. Above Tilly Whim, a Peregrine circles high hover head, turning at sharp angles to form a many-side polygonal pattern, before her patrol is interrupted by a mob of Jackdaws and she streaks off towards Durlston Head, quickly outpacing her pursuers. Several large, raucous flocks of Crows also out scavenging, along with a Raven – looking like a black hole cut into the sky.
Below the cliffs, a few Shags flap by, just above the sea, with 6 Gannets also passing through – my eye always jumps straight to their bright white plumage. Rock Pipits skitter along the clifftop, with a Dunnock hoping along the verge ahead of me as a return up the Diagonal Path.