Another beautiful morning, although for the first time in a few days, streaks of high Cirrus drift high overhead through a bright blue sky.
Whitethroats call noisily from a Hawthorn at the top of the Lighthouse Field – it’s branches covered with ripening berries, with berries of Wayfaring Tree also plentiful at the moment, as the summer draws on.
The meadows are bursting with colours and forms, with shoals of Rough Hawkbit, Yellow Rattle, Field Scabious, Corky-fruited Water Dropwort, Pale Flax and Ox-eye Daisies, forming a gently swaying canopy.
Below them, a dense tangle of Common Vetch, Self-heal, Yellow Rattle, Hop Trefoil, Grass Vetchling and Pyramidal and Common Spotted Orchids, to name just a few!
Some huge patches of Dyers Greenweed in some of the meadows – a large, yellow-flowered member of the Pea family, with it’s smaller relatives, Meadow Vetchling, Birdsfoot Trefoil and Horseshoe Vetch (in various shades of yellow) also in bloom.
Eye-catching red and black 6-Spot Burnet Moths flutter from flower, red and black Soldier Beetles mate on the flat heads of Wild Carrot and Wild Parsnip, with glorious, iridescent green Thick-kneed Flower Beetles nestled in the heads of many flowers.
On the shorter downland turf, Hedge and Lady’s Bedstraw are in bloom, and as usual, in a particular spot in the Lighthouse Field, a lemon-yellow hybrid between the two.
Elsewhere, Wild Thyme, Red Bartsia, Eyebright, Quaking Grass, Centaury and Yellow-wort are flowering, with several mating pairs of Bloody-nose Beetles plodding slowly around.
There are just a few days left before many of our breeding seabirds head back to sea for the winter, so do make the most of the Clifftop Trail, where Guillemots, Razorbills and Fulmars can all be seen, along with Great Black-backed Gulls, Herring Gulls, Shags and Kestrel.
Out at sea, a few Gannets pass by, with a Peregrine Falcon swerving round Durlston Head.