After the gloriously clear skies of last night’s stargazing, a blanket of dismal grey has rolled over the Country Park, the sun struggling to punch through over the eastern waters of the English Channel.
The fresh Sou’westerly wind has set the Daffodils ashiver as I arrive, and the flowerheads of the Lesser Celandines are clamped shut with the meagre sunshine on offer.
One of the ‘witches' brooms’ in the Sycamore by the Learning Centre is looking markedly more rotund of late, and as I watch on, a Magpie comes sailing in, buffeted by the gusts and with twig firmly clamped in beak, ready to add to the growing nest.
As I trek across the Daisy-scattered lawn to the Weather Station, a Bloody-nosed Beetle trundles steadily toward me, presumably on the hunt for a Lady’s Bedstraw breakfast.
Heading down toward the wind-tossed and roaring Holm Oak woodland, a handful of ‘slots‘ in the muddy path surface reveal I’m walking in the footsteps of a passing Roe Deer.
Singly lustily, both Wren and Robin are fighting hard to be heard over the gusts today. A lush crop of berries dangle from the Atlantic Ivy, in stark contrast to the tired-looking fruits of Stinking Iris, striking orange now stained with brown.
Entering the woodland, I spy a new box installed on a Holm Oak trunk, which will hopefully become a valued summer roost to Bats overspilling the resident colonies in Tilly Whim and other nearby caves and quarrs.
The fleshy plumage of Turkey-tail Fungus continues to blanket the dead-wood borders of the woodland path, while from above I’m serenaded by the high, fluting calls of Firecrest and burbling Blackcap.
In places, the less compacted path edge has been tossed about, revealing the nighttime foraging of Durlston’s local Badger clan.
Reaching the Castle, I descend the steeper northern end of the Clifftop Trail.
As Goldfinch twitter and Wood Pigeon burble in the canopy, a pair of Great Tits dance and flit atop the ‘cocks-and-hens’ of the drystone wall.
On the Undercliff below Caravan Terrace, a Blackbird sits sentinel while Blue Tits bounce through the bedraggled tangle of Bramble and Old Man’s Beard, as a solitary Chiffchaff announces its return to Durlston after a winter away.