A bright and breezy start to the day, turning the meadows into a dancing, dazzling kaleidoscope of colour.
Tall white and yellow Ox-eye Daisies and golden Rough Hawkbit dance in the wind, above brilliant pink Pyramidal Orchids in their thousands. Yellow Rattle has dried to shades of bronze and gold – its large, flat seeds rattling in their pods.
‘Dusty’ Red Bartsia lines the path edges, while fluffy yellow Ladies Bedstraw and white Hedge Bedstraw nestle among the grasses. Here and there, the pink ‘trumpet’ flowers of Field Bindweed can be seen, with purple Field Scabious, Knapweed and Greater Knapweed also starting to bloom.
The hedges are a tangled mass of Old Man’s Beard, sweet-scented yellow Honeysuckle and the glossy berries and leaves of Black Bryony. The huge, fluffy leaves of Burdock sprawl across the base of the hedges, with their round, hooked seeds covering the upper ‘branches’. Teasels are also starting to flower, along with tall, ferociously spiky Woolly Thistle.
The shorter downland turf is carpeted with purple Wild Thyme, Birdsfoot Trefoil (the long, curved seeds which form the birds foot now starting to appear), fluffy Kidney Vetch, Centaury and the tiny, four pointed pink and white flowers of the wonderfully-named Squinancywort.
Despite the breeze, Meadow Brown, Small Heath and Marbled White butterflies flutter above the meadows, with Small, Large and Lulworth Skipper seen on the banks above the Coast Path.
Plenty of other invertebrates to see, including brick-red and black Soldier Beetles mating on top of the large pink and white flowers of Wild Carrot, metallic green Thick-legged Flower Beetles nestled in the centre of Sea Bindweed flowers, shiny black Bloody-nose Beetles, plodding along the ground.
Still plenty of Guillemots and Razorbills to be seen along the cliffs, though we are now in the last week or two before they return to sea, with Fulmars, Shags, Great Black-backed Gulls and Kestrel also on the wing.