Around the Park, Spring is gathering pace, with more signs of new life appearing every day.
Along the clifftop, a pair of Rock Pipits chase back and forth – although impossible to tell the sex from their appearance, most likely two males arguing over territory – further along another male warms up one of his showy display flights.
The screeching of a Kestrel makes me look up and down again, just in time to see a Peregrine skim silently by just below the clifftop.
Guillemots straggle across the water below, along with a few blacker Razorbills, as Fulmars wheel above them and Shags fly ponderously in and out with beakfuls of twigs. Great Black-backed Gulls soar on broad wings with an even larger Gannet out in the distance.
As I opened up the Castle, a report from a local birder of a Swallow coming in off the sea into Durlston Bay, with a newly returned Wheatear perched on the wall at Tilly Whim.
A pair of Ravens ‘cronk’ as they flap by, with a mob of Jackdaws adorning the turrets of the Castle.
A Bloody-nose Beetle (the first I’ve seen this spring) plods along the newly repaired Clifftop Trail, with the miniature ‘mole-hills’ of Mining Bees scattered in their dozens across the short turf near the Lighthouse.
At Tilly Whim, Early Scurvy Grass is in bloom, with it’s tiny white flowers. Nearby lots of the leaves of Early Spider Orchid, though now flowers yet.
In the meadows, Cowslips are starting to flower, though rather small and thinly scattered, with plenty of Primroses and Three-cornered Leek in flower in the woods. The meadows are framed with white Blackthorn blossom, with Hawthorn now coming into leaf.
Just outside the Learning Centre, a Sallow is covered with blossom – attracting the attention of a Queen Buff-tailed Bumble Bee, with a Brimstone butterfly fluttering along the woodchip path.