I was greeted this morning by an illuminating cascade of bright colours that mixed and merged across the landscape to present a perfect morning for a stroll. The bright blue sky coexisted peacefully with the soft wisps of white cloud while the golds, ambers and browns of fallen leaves highlighted the ground below.
Hopping merrily in the carpark a pair of Pied Wagtails frolicked up and down the kerbs like a duo of rad street skaters while Robins, Great Tits, Blue Tits and Chaffinches joined voices to chirp out a vehement cacophony of morning song. Across Long Meadow the defiant spire of the Cretaceous Old Harry’s Rocks could be seen through the gaps in the trees, bathing in the golden sunlight while a sloth like Gannet floated with the greatest of ease above it.
Through to the woodland amongst the Ivy covered drystone walls and the falling, spiralling helicopters of Maple, there was an explosion of bird song and activity, where the alarming screech of Jays mingled with the cackle of Magpies and the shrill call of the tiny Wren competed with the chirp of the Song Thrush. I was delighted to see Europe’s smallest bird the Goldcrest in abundance, constantly on the move, flitting from branch to branch in search of food, their golden and black heads shimmering in the fingers of light that peeked through the trees.
Out to sea a group of Black headed gulls sat contently, bobbing up and down on the waves; despite their name their heads at this time of year are predominantly white with a few rouge splodges of black still clinging on as a vestige to their earlier breeding season. Herring Gulls hung in a perfect silence above them, seemingly floating in time with the rhythmic lapping of the waves on the shore