A glorious start to the day, though a little cooler than yesterday, with a pleasant north-easterly breeze carrying with the scents of summer at Durlston. The sweet smell of Elder and Hawthorn flowers, overpowering scent of swathes of Daisies and the ‘new mown hay’ smell of Sweet Vernal Grass mix with the bitter tang of Bracken and Nettles.
Thousands of orchids are in bloom across the Park, with Common Spotted Orchid, Early Purple Orchid, the first of the Southern Marsh Orchids and the buds of Bee Orchids (though none in flower just yet).
The rare Early English Gentian is in full bloom – no more than a couple of inches high, much of the world population of this pretty purple Gentian is found along the Purbeck Coast.
Cuckoo Spit can be found in abundance, adorning the stems of plants including Cleavers, Bulbous Buttercup, Woolly Thistle and Bryony. Inside each clump of froth lives a lovely green Froghopper Larvae, with an appealing pair of huge black eyes!
Lots of golden-flowered Crosswort in bloom on the downs, alongside electric blue Chalk Milkwort, golden yellow Bacon and Eggs (or Birdsfoot Trefoil), the intricate pink and white flowers of Wild Carrot and Horseshoe Vetch, with the lovely Quaking Grass bobbing in the breeze.
The meadows are also looking spectacular, with the very first of the Ox-eye Daisies starting to bloom, alongside Pale Flax and Yellow Rattle, with the curious pink-brown flowers of Carrot Broomrape (a parasite on Wild Carrot) also in bloom (with it’s relative Ivy Broomrape in bloom along the Lighthouse Road).
Guillemots straggle along the water below the cliffs, with a few Razorbills among the ‘bazaar’, as Fulmars wheel above them, and Shags, Herring Gulls and Great Black-backed Gull hurry in and out from the cliffs.