A still, but rather foggy and damp start to the day, with Round Down shrouded in mist and a steely sea fading into a grey horizon.
As I walked up the entrance road on the way to work, a Roe Deer buck bounds across the road near the Aviaries, just a few metres in front of me, with 2 does in tow behind him. Almost immediately they ran back the other way, having presumably found no way out of the garden opposite.
Despite the weather, there is a real sense of spring in the air, with bird song becoming louder and more insistent as breeding season approaches. Great Tits wheeze their two-note calls from hedges and scrub, mingling with the song of Blue Tits, Robins and fragments of song from Dunnock and Chaffinch, punctuated by the sharp ‘tuts’ of Wrens.
A large and boisterous family of Long Tailed Tits forage along a hedgerow on the Drove in an acrobatic display, rotating through 360 degrees as they feed.
The manic cackle of a Green Woodpecker heard as he flaps across Long Meadow, bobbing along as if on elastic, with the ‘cronk’ of a Raven overhead.
A Buzzard wheels slowly above Durlston Bay, with a Bullfinch and a small flock of Goldcrest seen on Caravan Terrace, where the slow drip of water from the Tufa spring echoes through the stillness. A Peregrine Falcon swerves round Durlston Head – grey and dart-like, in contrast to the steady flight and bulky body of a Cormorant below him.
‘Round the Head’, the cliffs are starting to bustle as seabirds select nest-sites and renew their bonds.
20+ Guillemots paddle and splash on the water below the ledges, with 5 Razorbills, easily distinguished by their noticeably blacker plumage and stubby bills.
Fulmars wheel and criss-cross in smooth arcs, with a great view of a pair, high on the cliff just below the Observation Point allowing me to spot the black ‘sunglasses’ of feathers around their eyes and tubes on top of their beaks (which mark them out as a member of the Albatross family).
Nearby, Jackdaws are tucked into nest-holes, with Shag, Herring Gull and Great Black-backed Gull also seen.
Several Rock Pipits dart along the clifftop, with the blue flowers of Great Periwinkle in bloom on the landward side.