A splash of colour in the woodland, where beautiful bouquets of Hydrangea, are nestled between the towering Wood Dock, petals both pink and white. St John’s Wort also decorated with it’s sunny yellow flowers, between the great tussocks of Pendulous Sedge. A little Dunnock scampers through the carpet of Enchanters Nightshade below, it's feathers mottled brown and black.
I step into the Aviary Glade, now filled with White Clover, Daisy, and Meadow Buttercup. Hoverflies hum around its fringes where Hogweed, Nettle and Hedge Woundwort thrive standing tall. They race for sunlight where the Hazel stalls were coppiced overwinter.
I wander up the coastal path, following the limestone chip track bounded by old dry stone walls. Leaves rustle above with the sound ‘Chiff-chaff, chiff-chaff’ call, with a Northerly wind blowing through. A break in the trees and the grey seascape is revealed, framed by the evergreen Holm Oak, silver White Poplar leaves and mediterranean Black Pines.
Under the old Beech, the dead three-pronged Ash has fallen, it’s based succumbed to rot and fungi. The black hard lumps of King Alfred’s Cakes swell along its trunk. There’s competition between the understorey flora, with Hemp Agrimony and Willowherb both looming above me, their flowers now in blossom and prompting a spike in butterfly numbers; Small and Large White, Speckled Wood, Meadow Brown, and Gatekeeper.
You will also find an abundance of these butterflies where the Buddleia is now adorned with its cones of densely clustered purple flowers. The fragrant sweet scent filling the air.
I meander my way down to Durlston head, a brilliant view of a Peregrine soaring upward as I round the headland. I can hear the Guillemots from the observation point, the chicks who survived this years persistent Raven predation now beginning to fledge. Some Sea Thrift remains in flower along the coast, alongside the pretty Sea Campion and Wild Carrot, which speckles the clifftop white.