A very drizzly morning with a south westerly wind bringing in layers of the rain. Not the big enjoyable drops of rain that cool you down as you walk but the thin, driving rain that gets through your fleece and quickly soaks your shirt! The temperature is still good for the time of the year, with the weather station reading 16.1 degrees as I write this, so some plus points!
My walk starts at the Castle and I wander down to Durlston Head and look over to Harry Rocks, the SW wind sending long ripples across Durlston Bay. The Tamarisk is shivering in the breeze and the long stems of Thrift are extending above, the flowering purply pink heads lulling from side to side. I can hear the busy chatterings of Long Tailed Tits across a few of the Holme Oaks and the busy clicks of Robins from their perches inside the bushes and hedges, taking cover from their usual positions on top of the vegetation.
A Meadow Pipit is disturbed by the Mile Markers and darts up the hill, weaving across the drystone wall. Yesterday Grylo and his team of bird ringers tagged over 100 Meadow Pipits here! Down in the Gully, by Tilly Whim, a Rock Pipit was calling out which drew my attention to the shoreline and how the rocks were coated in Seaweed, something I hadn’t noticed before. The Downs look dark and looming as I scan across the Gully with my binoculars and a black storm cloud is rolling in from the West, plump and full of water ready to dowse Purbeck! I notice the different shades of the Common Gorse on the Lighthouse Green, the younger clumps a limey green; the older standings a heavy set dark green. It’s nearly that time of year when we have to start managing this area of the park by cutting down areas of Gorse and Bramble ready for next year’s spring.
Other birds seen around the meadows were Swallows, House Martins, Chiffchaff, Common Whitethroat, Pied Wagtail as well as Chaffinch and Goldfinch on Old Mans Beard, which is looking rather beardy at the moment I must add!