A cold bite whisks around my short clad knees! The sun is low across the park and is blurring my vision as I try and scour the hedgerows looking for birdlife. I can hear it, its teaming full of activity, but those ‘little brown jobs’ are flitting through my peripheral vision and vanishing into the depths of the vegetation. Above me Swallows, House and Sand Martins dart from field to meadow, from Downs to the cliffs, letting out little trill calls as they glide over. Walking along the hedge in Boys Brigade I spook a Red Admiral, then another, then another, all coming out of the same section of bramble, like they were spawning! Finally a fourth one emerges and scoots past me, probably wondering where its mates had gone! Then near the ground a perfectly flat Painted Lady butterfly positions itself, its wings rotating toward the sun, its wings outstretched, soaking those low rays. I manage to get a few photos but the sun is creating long shadows and mine cascades across its wings and this is enough to make it take flight. Berries of Hawthorn, Elder, Sloe and Byrony hang plump, spherical balls of morning energy for our feathered friends.
A meander around Long Copse and I have to be careful as our wonderful Badgers, which are vaccinated here at Durlston, have snuffled through the ground creating little craters. I also have to be mindful of the wonderfully purple, blackberry processed latrines which pepper the ground! The meadows, which have now been cut and the bales left, ready for collection, looking like portions of swiss roll, still have a few flowers dotted along the rides, Fleabane, Rest Harrow, Agrimony, Wild Carrot and Field Scabious. As I climb over one of the stone stiles built into the drystone wall I hear scratching, the brown dry Teasels scrapping in the morning blow. 3 Wheatear are clinging to some Elder, swaying on the delicate branches and a Blackcap sits below them. I have a great view of their little black eye masks and as they fly off, undulating low to the ground, I can see the distinctive black T on their tail framed by brilliant white. Also in the hedges are Lesser Whitethroat, Chiffchaff, Chaffinch, Garden Warbler and then rising from near me and landing at top of some Ivy clad bush was a beautifully mottled female Kestrel. She glanced behind at me, checking me out then took to the wing and gracefully skirted across the meadows.