Starting the walk, it is misty, windy and drizzly, as we will catch the tail end of Storm Floris. I decide to have a walk along the Marvelous Meadows Children Trail to check all the signs are in. In Long Meadow Ragwort, Wild Parsnip, and Wild Carrot are present, as the Ash and Holm Oaks towards the Pleasure Grounds sway in the wind.
I look down into a rather foggy Durlston Bay, as a few Wood Pigeons can be spotted gliding with the wind, as well as a Blackbird, heard around the woodland and down in the Dell was a Goldcrest, Great Tit and Blue Tit. Passing the Castle and into the Large Copse, the psithurism (the sound of the wind amongst the trees) is heard between the Holm Oaks, Ashes and Sycamore, a few bits of twigs also drop down to the floor. The odd brave Robin, as well as a Wren and a Blue Tit can be heard singing away.
Onto Lighthouse Road young Ash, Willowherb, Nettles, and thistles are spotted, including the beautiful Woolly Thistle. Passing a gate into lighthouse field, I follow the arrow sign taking me right onto a grass trail. Here another Wren can be heard in the distance, 2x Crows, a Robin, Dunnock, Wood Pigeon and 3x Herring Gulls.
Into field 10a, a different Wren is heard singing away down in the gully scrub, as well as a Goldfinch, Blue Tit and Great Tit. Heading into Ox-eye Saxon and South fields many of the wildflowers are spent it seems now, but what was spotted in the meadows are Birds-foot Trefoil, Wild Carrot, Ragwort, Restharrow, Brown Knapweed, Field Scabious, Bindweed, Tufted Vetch (with rattling seed bods), Red Bartsia, Common Fleabane, Mouse-ear Hawkweed. Fauna seen and heard along the way, 3x Meadow Browns, one in Ox-eye looking rather dreary with the weather, Crows, Robins, many a Wren and in South Field – the unmistakable sound of a Peregrine Falcon screeching in the distance towards the clifftops.