As I arrive for my morning patrol, the drifting candy-floss clouds, underlit in pink, release slanting ribbons of dawn light onto the shivering midnight blue of the English Channel.
Durlston Country Park is firmly into migration season now, with reports of Snow Bunting and Mediterranean Gull in the National Nature Reserve, as well as a lingering Pallas's Warbler drawing in birders from across Dorset and beyond.
Pulling into the car park, two Magpie methodically work their way along the verge, while just six of the hundreds of Wood Pigeon recently seen above the Country Park forage in the long grasses.
Heading to the top of the Lighthouse track, the rich tones of Autumn are slowly being replaced with the sombre shades of winter, with the Hawthorn scrub now largely devoid of leaves, though a solitary Gorse bush provides a punch of summery yellow.
I pause to calibrate my binoculars on a Carrion Crow perched atop a Mile Marker, while beyond a Greater Black-backed Gull banks and wheels in the biting wind.
Heading West along the Herston Trail, I flush a male Sparrowhawk from the hedgeline, the smaller, slate-backed bird distinct from the large tawny female repeatedly spotted this week.
Just a couple of minutes later, a Kestrel similarly bolts from atop the dry-stone, powering out over the Gully before disappearing over the cliffs.
More festive tones greet me as I reach the small bridge at the head of the Gully, the glossy evergreen of English Ivy and a bounty of Wild Rose hips, mercifully sheltered from the brisk nou’westerly.
Within the tangled undergrowth, I hear the rapid-fire ticking of a Blackbird’s alarm call, and the irrepressible burble of the Robin.
Climbing the slick track to the Lookout Point above the Lighthouse, the profusion of Wild Clematis in the Gully below resembles a light dusting of snow, fitting given the seasonal cold that has finally arrived.