Another baking summer morning, and with barely a breath of wind, and many birds tucked up for breeding season, the park seems wonderfully still and quiet this morning.
In the meadows, the only sounds are the tumbling, lyrical notes of a Skylark high overhead and the ‘roar’ of countless thousands of Field and Meadow Grasshoppers singing from deep within the grass.
The fields a turning to shades of gold and bronze, dappled with bright yellow Rough Hawkbit and Bristly Ox-tongue, tall, lilac-flowered Field Scabious, the white umbels of Corky-fruited Water Dropwort and rich, imperial purple Greater Knapweed.
Below the canopy of taller flowers, a colourful tangle of pink and white Restharrow, stands of dry Yellow Rattle, with a few late Common Spotted Orchids still in bloom.
Blizzards of butterflies drift and flutter above the fields, with thousands of Meadow Browns and Marbled Whites circling among the taller flowers. An eye-catchingly bright Small Copper pauses to rest for a moment on the path in front of me, with Small Heath, Large, Small and Lulworth Skippers, Gatekeeper, Common Blue and Red Admiral also seen this morning.
Just as striking, thousands of beautiful red and black 6-spot Burnet Moths are also on the wing, while on many flower-heads, red and black Soldier Beetles can be found – many in mating pairs, while a lovely, metallic green Thick-kneed Flower Beetle nestles in the centre of one of the trumpet-like flowers of Field Bindweed. Glossy black Bloody-nose Beetles plod across the short turf, with Southern Hawker Dragonflies circling the pond in the Wildlife Area.
The short downland turf is covered with a colourful carpet of Wild Thyme, Birdsfoot Trefoil, Eyebright, honey-scented Lady’s Bedstraw and the wonderfully named Squinancywort (torrents of tiny white flowers).
19.4Below the cliffs, a few dozen Guillemots bob on the water, enjoying the last few weeks after breeding season before they return to sea for the winter.