Another wild and windy morning, with rain spattering my face as I arrived at work, however a brightening sky quickly fills with bright blue and among some ominous dark purple clouds, some patches of bright sunshine.
While the summer palette of colour has faded to more muted tones, looking across the Lighthouse Field I am struck by just how many shades of green make up Durlstons winter landscape. Crimson Hawthorn berries gleam in the sunshine among glittering traceries of Old Man’s Beard, while among the soft bronze of Tor Grass the purple flowers of Greater Knapweed are all the more eye-catching.
Overhead, charms of Goldfinches swirl, filling the air with their ‘sleighbell’ calls, as a single Swallow battles the breeze above the Lighthouse and Blue Tits and Great Tits feed among the Blackthorn scrub.
In the shelter of Caravan Terrace, small birds are feeding up while they can, with Dunnocks, Robins, Wrens, Chaffinches and a pink-breasted Bullfinch among the dark scrub. The cliff face itself is almost covered with a ‘waterfall’, as ground water makes it’s way through the clay layers between the Purbeck beds, pattering down onto the grass below.
Off the cliffs, a skein of bulky-bodied Brent Geese pass by, a dark line above the horizon, with Shag, Cormorant and Great Black-backed Gull also on the wing.
Near the Observation Point, a Peregrine Falcon ‘clasps the cliff with crooked hands’, her feathers ruffled by the gusty wind.
The woodland is filled with the hiss and roar of the wind, with Grey Squirrels chasing among the shaking branches of Holm Oaks, sending acorns rattling down to the ground and the shriek of a Jay making me jump as it bursts out of the canopy.
The damp weather has brought forth a fine crop of fungi, including Dead Man’s Fingers on rotting logs, weird purple Ear Fungus on Elder and in the Saxon Field, some huge Shaggy Parasol Mushrooms – almost the size of a side plate!