Though we’ve now passed the Winter Solstice, my commute still begins in darkness for the time being, a few determined stars still twinkling in the firmament.
Sadly it’s our wildlife that pay the price for our increased travel in the darker hours, as I spot two Red Fox and the same number of Sika Deer struck down since I last drove this route before Christmas.
Dawn arrives as I reach the Isle of Purbeck, and Corfe Castle is back-lit in a watercolour wash of pink and orange. Approaching Durlston on the Kingston Road, a 'chattering’ of over a hundred Jackdaws wheel and surge over the Lovell Quarry, well deserving of the ‘murmuration’ title typically reserved for the Starlings.
A stiff no’easterly is scudding the feathery cirrus across the sky as I reach the Country Park, though a bank of darker cloud sits glowering on the horizon. A Magpie bounces and ducks, countering the wind-blown movement of its Hawthorn perch as I pass by.
After a few days upcountry, I’m keen for some Vitamin Sea, and head straight for the Lighthouse track. A trilling, rattling Wren ducks into the mass of winter-flowering Gorse ahead of me, as a pair of Carrion Crows continue their relentless foraging in the grass.
Approaching Lighthouse Bridge, I observe both the chestnut plumage and perambulating melody of a Song Thrush, noted alongside the ubiquitous Robin for their winter songs.
A stark counterpoint is the bassy burp of the Raven, contact-calling as it drops over the Gully edge ahead of me, seeking its mate.
Joining the South West Coast Path, a flock of Feral Rock Dove thunder past me, heavy wings audible even over the headwind. Ahead, a Great Black-backed Gull, the largest species in the gull and tern family Laridae, wheels in the wind, broad, dark wings carving through the eddies with ease.
Ascending the Clifftop Trail, the sheltered Holm Oak woodland is alive with the furtive scrambling of Grey Squirrels, the frantic rush of Blackbirds and the high tinkles and squeezes of Blue and Great Tits.