The unusually benign weather of the earlier week has disappeared as I arrive for patrol, replaced by strong winds, gloomy skies and a yellow weather warning for rain.
On arrival in the car park, Carrion Crows continue their perpetual foraging of the verges, while a Song Thrush gives credence to its folk name of ‘Storm Cock’, resolute in its treetop singing despite the blustery conditions.
The feeder in the Learning Centre pond area is once again empty of birds, the gusts perhaps too strong for the smaller passerines, though as I watch, a Blackbird makes a spirited rush to the south, hugging the Bramble scrub closely.
As I cautiously pick my way down the muddy path to the Lighthouse track, a single Roe Deer ‘slot’ in the viscous surface tells of an earlier traveller here.
White horses rush up the English Channel ahead, driven by the sou’westerly, while the Holm Oak woodland mimics the waters beyond, branches roaring and thrown to-and-fro by the wind.
A Grey Squirrel clings to the base of one oak, keeping a wary eye on me, the shifting canopy above no longer a safe refuge.
In contrast to the evergreen oaks, the bladed leaves of the Grey Willow are a citrine yellow, and likely much diminished by the time this weather window blows through.
In stark contrast to the windswept Western side of the National Nature Reserve, the tangled web of Wild Clematis along the sheltered lighthouse track has still retained much of its leafage, with fewer of the distinctive ‘Old Man’s Beards’ on display.
There’s also plenty of late-flowering English Ivy visible, a valuable food supply for those invertebrates still active.
The Rangers and volunteers have been hard at work on the central traffic island between the car parks, pushing back the scrub to maintain the ‘ecotone’ between the open grassland and closed canopy tree cover. The piles of resulting Sycamore branches or ‘brash’ visible between the trees will become valuable habitat for invertebrates, fungi and small animals.
Former Durlston Ranger Hamish passes me, reporting wind-blown Kittiwakes and Gannets visible offshore, birds well adapted to riding these winter tempests.