The Park is looking glorious in the brilliant morning sunshine, with a dazzling palette of spring greens bathed in gold against a royal blue sea – wow!
A gentle north-easterly breeze cools the air, carrying with it the lovely ‘Muscatel’ scent of Elder, sweet coconut smell of flowering Gorse and the ever present tang of the sea.
The meadows are covered with constellations of wildflowers, with some fields dappled with many hundreds of Common Spotted Orchids, in shades of ‘Raspberry Ripple’ pink, with extravagant Bee Orchids (described by a Victorian visitor to Durlston as looking “so uncannily like Bees, we were half afraid of them”) scattered across the meadows and Downs and the first dark pink Pyramidal Orchids also starting to appear.
In Centenary meadow, the tall pink flowers of Sainfoin form dense pools, with slender Ox-eye Daisies and blue-flowered Pale Flax swaying in the breeze above them.
Nestled among a dense ‘forest’ of Yellow Rattle, the curious purple-brown flowers of Common Broomrape – as a true parasite, this plant lacks any green chloropyhll, making it look like it has finished flowering even when in full bloom.
Common Vetch tangles around the stems of grasses, scrambling it’s way up to the light, with fine displays of Kidney Vetch, Birdsfoot Trefoil and Horseshoe Vetch on the shorter turf.
Overhead Skylarks pour their glorious song into a blue sky, with the scratchy notes of Whitethroats and Lesser Whitethroats, ‘schwee’ of Greenfinches, syncopated notes of Dunnocks, jangling of Goldfinches and ‘squeaky bike pump’ calls of Great Tits all ringing out from the hedgerows.
A great seabird boat trip last night, with plenty of young Gannets, Peregrine Falcon, Guillemots, Razorbills, Oystercatchers, Fulmars and a Puffin all seen.