The thick cloud making for a very dull early patrol, making it difficult to distinguish some of the small birds.
The flitting of a drab brown looking warbler caught the eye, but this turned out eventually to be a Willow Warbler. In the same resting place, a Sloe covered Blackthorn bush was a Common Whitethroat and a brown capped female Blackcap.
It looks like it will be a good year for fruit with the trees being laden, including our Wild Apples and Pears, Hawthorn and Brambles.
Lying in the long grass, just the ears initially visible above the seed heads was a female Roe Deer, as I watched the ears were twitching and she raised her head enabling me to see the black nose.
The sound of the seaside in late summer filling the air as the young Herring Gulls were calling noisily in their high pitched squeak while adults were cackling as they wheeled about.
At sea the numbers of Mackerel has been rising recently, which usually attracts additional seabirds and hopefully marine mammals.
The Sunflower Trail, which leads from Herston to Durlston is very popular with the wildlife, with one of the sacks I looked at, including 3 Sunflowers, one of which was in bloom, the other two ravaged by slugs and snails. One them were White-lipped snail, Garden Snail and the Strawberry Snail, plus the slug Arion Ater.
The flowers are still looking lovely with the purple flowered Greater Knapweed probably the most obvious, along with the Lesser Knapweed and Field Scabious. Added to this on the downland are the Small Scabious and the low growing Squinancywort, Eyebright and Wild Thyme.
The ‘autumn’ flowers are now in bloom with the golden brown Carline Thistle showing well amongst the short turf alongside the Dwarf Thistle and the strange Autumn Ladies Tresses orchid, whose tiny white flowers spiral around the greyish-green stem.
In the hedgerows the taller flowers of Willowherb and Hemp Agrimony are in full flower along with the white almost umbellifer-like Yarrow, the rambling Honeysuckle and the clambering Wild Clematis.