A calm but cloudy start to the day with a few specks of rain falling as I set on this morning’s walk. I head across the top of Long Meadow, watching a Grey Squirrel bounding through the Buttercups as I enter the woodland. Holm Oak leaves flutter down around me as I reach the Rest and Admire viewpoint. Today I can only see as far as Old Harry Rocks at which point the sea fades into the sky.
I wander down past the Castle and Sea Chart, passing the swathes of bright yellow Charlock towering over the path. At the Great Globe, I find myself confronted with a Blue Tit. Perched atop one of the bollards, it stares towards me, with a big juicy Caterpillar in it’s beak. After a few seconds it decides I’m worth the risk, and takes flight into its nest somewhere inside the dry stone wall.
The Sea Thrift is quite the spectacle along the cliffs at the moment. These pink blossoms alongside the flowering Sea Campion and Ribwort Plantain providing a pretty foreground to the views of the Guillemots rafting on the water below.
I was pleased to see both a Blackcap and a Greenfinch on my way up the diagonal path, the latter of which I hadn’t seen in a while. I kept my eyes peeled for dolphins but no such luck – a phone call from the NCI at Hengistbury Head later reported a sighting of a single Bottlenose Dolphin over there about 0915.
On my return to the office, a flurry of excitement from the wildlife garden – apprentice Robin emerges with news of a Scarlet Rosefinch caught whilst Bird Ringing. This rare migrant species overwinters in India and other parts of Asia, before migrating northwards in the Spring – but usually only as far west as Scandinavia and more recently the Netherlands. It’s a truly stunning bird to see; bright rosy-red feathers all over it’s head, turning pinker towards its breast and mottled across its back and wings.