Dear, dear, dear! No less than 3 Roe Deer seen during the morning rounds this morning. At the top of Long Meadow, a Roe Buck stares me down, motionless among gently bobbing Bulbous Buttercups, while a Doe picks her way carefully among the bare rocks and cushions of Thrift on the very edge of the cliffs near Durlston Head and another Doe bounds across the path down to the Observation Point in front of me, covering 6 or 7 metres in just a few leaps.
The meadows are looking incredibly lush and green, filled with seas of Yellow Rattle, Bulbous and Meadow Buttercups, the first of the Ox-eye Daisies, delicate blue Pale Flax, pink spikes of Sainfoin, white-flowered Corky-fruited Water Dropwort and Greater Stitchwort and scrambling mounds of Common Vetch to name just a few!
More and more Common Spotted Orchids are emerging by the day, in a variety of shades from almost white to dark pink, with Southern Marsh Orchid also starting to bloom.
It’s safe to start ‘casting clouts’ as the May (or Hawthorn blossom) is out in many of the hedgerows, along with sweet white Elder flowers.
The mingled songs of Whitethroats, Robins, Wrens, Great and Blue Tits, Dunnocks, Blackbirds and Blackcaps ring out from the cool green centre of the hedges, while above the meadows, Skylarks pour their liquid, breathless song into the air.
Guillemots growl softly on the water below the cliffs, as others whir in and out above them as they head to sea to fish. The ledges are bustling, with more eggs appearing by the day. Fulmars make showy display flights around their ‘penthouse apartments’ on the clifftop – zooming in to almost brush the cliffs with their wingtips. Below them, Shags flap steadily by, with Herring Gulls and Jackdaws also on the wing.
More and more invertebrates to be seen as the spring crescendos, with Wall, Speckled Wood, Common Blue and an early Adonis Blue butterfly seen in the Lighthouse Field. Bloody-nose Beetles plod mechanically across the turf, with a metallic green Thick-kneed Flower Beetle nestled in the centre of a buttercup.