A wonderful, hushed start to the day – just what I need after a few hectic weeks, and a real pleasure to step out into a moist, misty and almost silent landscape.
The ground squelches pleasingly underfoot, and in the Lighthouse Field, the cattle have their heads down and are munching happily away (with a young calf, suckling noisily as mum chews the cud).
Overhead, a Green Woodpecker ‘yaffles’ as he bobs along, as if on a piece of elastic, with the flat ‘seep’ of a Redwing also heard. Nearby, the insistent song of a Robin pierces the silence, with a flock a Goldfinch rippling across the slopes below me as they forage for foo
From the scrub near the bridge, the flat whistle of a Bullfinch, with a party of Long-tailed Tits working their way through the tangle of Ivy and Old Man’s Beard.
A real treat this morning, as I stopped to watch a small group of Goldcrests flitting among the branches of a Black Pine in the Copse, as a loud snort made me jump and a Badger bustled past me, just a few yards away! Also seen, a Roe doe, grazing a glade on the gully slopes.
A wonderful morning for a sea-watch (though that really was all it was!), with a steely sea lapping gently against the cliffs and dissolving into a misty horizon. The ledges are packed with Guillemots, with more blurring in and out, in a haze of wings. An Oystercatcher passing by, along with Shag, more unusually a Cormorant, Herring Gull, Great Black-backed Gull and Kittiwake.
A gang of Jackdaws squabble noisily around the Castle, with a pair of Ravens circling above Durlston Bay. A ‘frenzy’ of Grey Squirrels around the front of the Castle, with one leaping off the ‘bouncy bird table’ as I approach and almost landing on top of another!