Stationed on a Hogweed fort or camped on Wild Carrots
We Soldier Beetles muster now on many blooming barracks
A Parsley here, a Parsnip there, we’ll find ourselves a billet
Give us your best Umbellifer and we’ll be sure to fill it.
The moon was in its third quarter as I walked up to the park this morning. Walking down Durlston Road the sky was bisected by a thick vapor trail, the left side cross hatched with jet tracks, the right graced by the moon and a few natural cirrus. Things are returning to the way they were before.
Ever the optimist, I went questing for fungi through the Woodlands again, readying myself for disappointment. I was extremely happy to chance upon a mass of Fairy Ink Caps inside the hollow of a tree. They weren’t looking their best; it seems that conditions here aren’t quite right for them to flourish. Several more Rooting Boletes had broken the surface further up, and gracing the scene was a fresh emergence of Branched Oyster near Solent Road. The threshold has been crossed; the fungi are back.
Crossing the Car Park Bristly Ox Tongue leaves lolled out in the sun like a panting dog, with Agrimony, Ladies Bedstraw and Scarlet Pimpernel populating the verges along side them. A Hoverfly whisked past the top of a few blooms, its best Wasp impression failing to convince me.
On Caravan Terrace I stood among a field of split logs, watching a pair of Large Whites spiralling together through the air above. Descending further towards the Cliffs I found a cluster of Soldier Beetles quartering atop a Wild Parsnip. It seems one Umbellifer is as good as another. As I walked, a Ringlet butterfly kept pace beside me, briefly landing to flash it’s namesake wing pattern. Butterflies are seldom this obliging.
A Honey Bee browsed a Bramble in front of me as I looked out over Durlston Bay. The water was a flat calm, a canvass painted gold with the warm morning rays of the sun. Old Harry Rocks stood out clear to the left, the tip of the Purbeck Hills straining to reach the mist shrouded Isle of Wight a scarce few miles away. It was just as beautiful as the first time I’d looked at it. You’d have to be mad to leave a place like this, wouldn’t you?
More butterflies coasted the still air as I continued to the Lighthouse. Marbled Whites were the most common, with the occasional Gatekeeper, suspected Essex Skipper based on the antennae and an Adonis Blue. The blurred wings of a Six Spot Burnet flashed over the grass as I approached the Learning Centre. There were also quite a few birds out today that I didn’t mention, this diary isn’t about them.