After a few days away from the Country Park, it’s a treat to arrive to a clear dawn, the fierce orb of the rising sun casting shades of orange and purple across the scattered cloud and sea below.
Even before I cross the park boundary, a fast-moving bird of prey banking around the neighbouring houses catches my eye - my first presumption is an attack run by a Sparrowhawk, but the russet back of a Kestrel takes me by surprise, this small falcon more typically seen hovering over Durlston’s open meadows.
On arrival in the park proper, the unusual so’easterly wind has set our Holm Oak woodlands roaring, while Robins assert their dominance with fluid burbles from the Hawthorn scrub.
Entering South Field, the Sloe berries sit shrivelled on the Blackthorn, the stems of these brutal shrubs thick with the fractal growth of lichens.
Cutting past Small Copse with its shivering crop of Stinking Iris, I enter Lighthouse Field, a pair of Jackdaw racing away into a strong headwind.
In my absence, the volunteers have been hard at work pushing back the encroaching Bramble along the edge of drystone wall - the south-facing, sheltered divots from historic quarrying fantastic for botanical biodiversity if woodier species are managed.
Nearing the head of the Gully, the muddy surface of the Herston Trail reveals a busy night for our resident Roe Deer, their ‘slots’ superimposed over the prints of yesterday’s dog walkers.
Pausing at the wooden bridge, a pair of avian silhouettes appear, furiously chasing one another while backlit by the rising sun.
Dogfighting north, it’s a little early for Sparrowhawks for be pairing up – the male had better tread carefully, as they are on occasion predated by the larger females!