A pleasure to step into the cool, green shade of the woodland as I walked in this morning – even at 7.30 I could already feel the heat bouncing off the pavement as I walked up the hill! However, “the woods are lovely, dark and deep” making the final leg much nicer!
In patches of dappled shade, Speckled Woods whirl in a dizzying dance, with a Red Admiral soaking up the warmth on a dry-stone wall, an increasingly rare glimpse of a Small Tortoiseshell fluttering among the green fronds of Tamarisk and a Hummingbird Hawkmoth sipping nectar from the cone-shaped purple flowers of a patch of Buddleia.
Emerging from the woodland onto the open clifftop, tiny, Chamois leather brown Lulworth Skippers weave among the gently swaying grasses, larger, pied Marbled Whites flutter alongside tiny Small Heaths, Meadow Browns and Gatekeepers.
3 Shags (an adult and 2 juveniles) paddle on the clear water below the cliffs, diving underneath from time to time, to “fly” along just below the surface to look for fish, before perching on a platform of rock just above the sea, to dry their wings.
Great Black-backed Gull and Herring Gull also on the wing, with a Peregrine, perched like a gargoyle on the cliff edge nearby, with a few Rock Pipits skittering along the clifftop.
A Kestrel hangs motionless in the air above the Lighthouse Field, almost as if painted onto the sky. The downland turf if covered with a colourful profusion of flowers, from dark purple Common and Greater Knapweed, to bright pink Centaury, tiny pink and white Restharrow and the wonderfully named Squinancywort (minute star-shaped flowers).
An Emperor Dragonfly patrols the road down to the Castle, it’s metallic carapace gleaming in the sunshine.
A few Swallows circle above the Car Parks, as the runners start to arrive for this morning’s Park Run – our lovely Cleaner Rosa will be celebrating a big birthday this morning, with her first ever Park Run! Good Luck!