12th June - Durlston Country Park, Dorset

 It is becoming a regular trip now, one outside the county to the wonderful Durlston Country Park.  Ian and I visited last year when the weather conditions were not really conducive to allow us to appreciate the habitats available.  Today the forecast looked very good and with the late spring we were hoping we would be able to see some of the species that in previous times had gone there best.

After picking Ian up outside Cadnam we arrived just before 6:30, the car park was empty and the skies clear and away over the downs there was a beautiful blue sky.  Walking from the car p[ark a female Bullfinch was feeding on the path, collecting seeds amongst the grass.  As we walked around the main path and came up to the cliff path we came across our first butterfly of the day, a Dingy Skipper at 6:45 am, a good sign.

Whitethroats could be head from the bushes and as we turned on to the cliff path one appeared on a branch coming out of the bush.

Behind the hedgerow and dry stone wall a male Roe Deer watched us as we walked toward it.

A little further along another butterfly before 7:00 am, a Small Blue.

Linnets were also very numerous there tinkling song and call mixing in with that of the scratchy Whitethroat song.  The males were looking superb with their rosy pink breasts.

It also didn't take long to come across the Stonechats either.  This male sitting prominently above the bushes.

More Whitethroat.

Good numbers of Jackdaw were performing their aerobatics along the cliff edge, like all corvids they are masters of the air and appear to enjoy flying, hanging in the wind and they rising and diving with the lift from the cliff face.

Ian commented that we probably photographed a Jackdaw on this post last year.  Once again a bird dismissed as a black bird up close cane be quite special.

More movement in the gars along the footpath produced a female Common Blue

As the cliff top open out and the grass was a lot more grazed we started to find the first Bee Orchids of the day.  Normally at this time of year we would find one or two but this year we started to find them in numbers and many with two or three flower heads.  In previous years it was only single heads.  All this is another indicator of how late the natural world has been this spring.

Truly exotic looking but not always occurring in exotic places, the Bee Orchid is everyone's idea of what an Orchid should look like.

It likes calcareous habitat, most abundant on road side verges where it can't always be seen and spoil heaps and industrial sites.

Despite being an insect mimic the Bee Orchid is almost entirely self pollinated.  Most common in southern England it was recently recorded in Scotland as recently as 2003.

Large spikes with widely spaced multi coloured flowers that have pink sepals.

Very bee-like flowers having a bulbous brownish lip with a yellow edged central pattern, furry arms and hairy petals.  At the top of the bee is a yellow appendage that is not easily seen in the photograph.  This is used for self pollination.

Because the Bee Orchids self pollinate this brings about genetic mutations in the form of unusual colour patterns and lip shapes.  These mutations occur at random and we will look into this a little more, but this accounts for some of the variation in patterns too.

Along with the Bee Orchids one or two Pyramidal Orchids were out, again this time last year they were everywhere.

Normally by the middle of June all the thrift has gone over and all you are left with is the brown dried out flower heads.  Today though, there was still a lot of carpets of the lovely pink flowers on the cliff tops.

In amongst the thrift were the yellow flowers of the Kidney Vetch, irresistible to many butterflies, here another Dingy Skipper.

Meadow Pipits could be seen and heard singing as they conducted their parachute display, while Skylarks sang both in the air and on the ground, an ant hill providing sufficient elevation.

Swifts could be seen out over the sea and along the cliff tops, they nest in the ledges on the cliffs.

The first Fulmar of the morning cruised by on stiff wings.

The Small Heath is a very frustrating butterfly, in flight you get glimpses of the orange yellow upper side, but as soon as it settles the wings snap shut and it lays down and all you can see is the underside with the splash of orange on the underside of the upper wing and the eye spot.  However this is probably as close as I have come to being able to record the upper wing.  The hind wing is slightly damaged and the orange yellow of the upper wing is showing through, a start I suppose.

We had arrived at Dancing Ledge, scanning the sea we could only make out Guillemots and Razorbills.  We were here for the Puffin, this is their most easterly breeding site on the south coast.  Last year we had found them on the sea but today they were not about.  There were quite a few people down on the edge, so rather than go down immediately we walked a little further on in the hope that we may get a better view of the water below.

The cliff top here was carpeted with a delicate pale blue flower that I think is Pale Flax, a type of Flax that is found on calcareous grassland.

The calls of Stonechat could be heard from almost every bush, here a quite splendid male.

We finally walked down to the ledge, there was a group of climbers and also several people who had been camping.  We checked the sea again, but the only auks bobbing up and down on the water were the Guillemots and Razorbills.

The view looking east, a shimmering silver sea.

We watched a large Peregrine, more than likely a female, flying low over the water past us towards the cliffs to our right.  Last year we had watched one perched on a ledge just above the Ledge, this year the human disturbance probably put paid to that.

There were some calls and we watched the Jackdaw flying around and then the Peregrine reappeared carrying a dark shape.

I think that this was probably a Guillemot chick taken from the ledge.  The Guillemots had been seen carrying fish to the cliffs and a Guillemot chick is covered in dark brown down at this time of year.

We watched her fly low over the water out of sight.  The Herring Gull slept through it all.

These are the cliffs to the right of the Dancing Ledge,talking to some swimmers they said they had seen Puffin while swimming around the point and into the bays.  But today there was no sign of them out on the water probably as a result again of the disturbance and maybe the chicks are yet to hatch.

We didn't give up and stood scanning the sea and of course trying to get the ultimate Swift in flight photograph.  Here are a few of this years attempts.

The Guillemots going and coming.

We finally had to admit defeat as about 15 swimmers plunged into the sea and started to make their way around the cliffs, even the Guillemots and Razorbills decided this was too much and they soon disappeared too.

A patch of flowers under the cliffs had several butterflies around it.

Common Blue.

The blue spikes of Viper's Bugloss.

A first for the year, a Small Skipper, but not the skipper we were hoping for.

A bit of a surprise, a Rose Chafer, according to the reference books commonly found in gardens and woodland and here it was in a quarry by the sea nectaring on thrift.

A walk around the main quarry area though finally delivered the butterfly we were hoping for, the Lulworth Skipper.  The females can be distinguished from other skippers by the pale orange 'sun-ray' markings on their fore 

wings whereas the males have darker-brown, almost olive coloured wings and a black line through the centre of the forewing. Both are darker than Small and Essex Skippers, neither of which has ray of pale spots.  Here the female is on the left, you can see rays or spots and the male behind her

Here the male with the dark line on the fore wing.

The Lulworth Skipper is one of the smallest of our butterflies. It is restricted to the extreme south of Dorset where it can be found in large numbers along a stretch of coast centred on the village of Lulworth, where the species was first discovered in 1832.  The range of the Lulworth Skipper has changed little in recent decades and it remains locally very abundant. 

They are found on chalk grasslands in Dorset, including chalk downland, coastal grasslands and under cliffs. The grass should be tall, as females prefer tall spikes of the foodplant (30-50 cm) and never select food plants under 10 cm for egg laying. South-facing slopes and grasslands sheltered from winds are preferred.

Any visit here at this time of year has three targets, the Bee Orchids, Lulworth Skipper and the Puffins.  We had failed on the Puffins but had managed to get the other two.  However the Bee Orchids are not usually that easy and there is one meadow that drops down to the cliffs where we would normally expect to find them.  We decided to head there now, leaving Dancing Ledge and all the people that had suddenly just appeared.

Crossing the fields to get to the meadow we stopped as a Painted Lady flew through, past us and then settled on thistles, it was though, a rather distressed individual.

Unfortunately, the Painted Lady is unable to survive our winter in any stage. This is a real shame, for not only does this species often arrive in large numbers, but is a welcome sight as it nectars in gardens throughout the British Isles in late summer. This butterfly has a strong flight and can be found anywhere in the British Isles, including Orkney and Shetland. 

An interesting fact is that this butterfly is the only butterfly species ever to have been recorded from Iceland.

Soon after the Painted Lady, a Brown Argus.

And a stunning male Adonis Blue

This beautiful species of butterfly is one of the most characteristic of unimproved southern chalk downland, where it can be seen flying low over shortly grazed turf (typically steep, south-facing slopes).

The males have brilliant sky-blue wings, while the females are chocolate brown and far less conspicuous. Both sexes have distinctive black lines that enter or cross the white fringes of the wings.

As we started to walk up the slope of the meadow we began to see the Bee Orchids.  Again the numbers were much more than we had encountered here before and there were plenty with two or more flower heads.

Some views from ground level within the grass.

I mentioned earlier about the genetic mutations that can arise due to self pollination.  One of those is the sub species fulvofusca trollii and is one of the commoner forms.  This was once known as a separate species, the Wasp Orchid.

The lip is malformed, long and triangular, with a variable blotchy yellow and brown pattern.  Often though confused with a typical Bee Orchid that is not fully open with the lip yet to unfold.

Leaving the Bee Orchids we headed downhill back to the cliff footpath with some lovely views of Dancing Ledge away to our right.

It was now quite warm in the many sheltered spots and the Adonis could be seen in greater numbers.

Here a male and female.

The walk back was accompanied by the song of the Skylark above us and the Stonechats and Whitethroats in the bushes.

About half way back to Durlston a female Peregrine flew past us just off shore and we watched as it appeared to gain height and turn back.  As it did so we noticed a male closer to us and this came over our heads and off in the direction of where we had come from.

There was little of note as we made our way back to the car other than this Violet Oil Beetle.

Of the four species of British oil beetle, the Violet oil beetle has the most varied habitat preferences and can be found in woodland edge habitats, glades and rides, upland moorlands and on flower-rich grasslands.

Violet oil beetles have a striking appearance despite their underlying black coloration, as light is refracted off their lustrous carapace to give them a purple, blue or green sheen. When they first emerge as adults in March, their abdomen is small and compact but, as they gorge themselves on lesser celandine and soft grasses, their abdomen becomes distended and can extend some way beyond the tip of their wings. 

Violet oil beetles have a striking appearance despite their underlying black coloration, as light is refracted off their lustrous carapace to give them a purple, blue or green sheen. When they first emerge as adults in March, their abdomen is small and compact but, as they gorge themselves on lesser celandine and soft grasses, their abdomen becomes distended and can extend some way beyond the tip of their wings. 

Lunch was quite relaxing and sitting at a table, after that we set off to find the flower meadows at the back of the park.  From here there was a wonderful view across to Old Harry's Rocks off Studland and Poole and Bournemouth beyond.

The first meadow we came to was covered with Common Spotted Orchids in all different shades of pink from dark to almost white.

The Common spotted-orchid gets its name from its leaves, which are green with many purple, oval spots. They form a rosette at ground level before the flower spike appears; narrower leaves sheath the stem. The flowers range from white and pale pink, through to purple, but have distinctive darker pink spots and stripes on their three-lobed lips. The flowers are densely packed in short, cone-shaped clusters.

The Common spotted-orchid is the easiest of all our orchids to see: sometimes, so many flowers appear together that they create a pale pink carpet in our woodlands, old quarries, dunes and marshes.  Common they may be, but this doesn’t take from their beauty

At a watering hole we came across a group of Small Blue butterflies drinking from the water and mud that was leaking from the tank and settling on the surrounding Bracken.

This time last year we had come across flower meadows that were covered with Ox-eye Daisies.  Then the weather conditions had been heavily laden dark grey skies and a very brisk wind..  Today it was perfect, blue skies a gentle breeze and warm sunshine.

It was time to sit down quietly and drink in the sight of the endless flowers moving gently in the breeze against the blue sky while above us Skylarks and Meadow Pipits sing.

Dragging ourselves away from the peace and quiet we headed down to the castle and the cliff path that has views out to sea and along the cliffs.  Both Guillemots and Razorbills nest here on the ledges.  In previous years there have also been Kittwakes but like other areas along the English coast they seem to be much harder to find.

Both auk species could be seen below on the water, these disturbed by one of the many small boats that cruise just below the cliffs.

There was movement between the sea and cliffs with some Guillemots carrying fish.

Moving along the path it was possible to get good views of Guillemots on the ledges.

Flying up to the place on the cliff

And the black plumaged Razorbills

A few more Guillemots.

A Great Black-backed Gull, looking quite stern and focused on the cliff ledge, they nest here but are also a threat to the auks.

Every so often it would set off on fly around, probably to look for any opportunity to pick up a meal for their young from the cliff ledges.

But the bird that provided the entertainment and challenge was the Fulmar.  On Mull I some how forgot to photograph the Fulmar in flight so here was the opportunity to make up for that.

Using the cliff face to provide lift they would cruise back and forth, circling out over the water to turn and then glide back past us at headed height.

Showing off their flying skills to hang in the updraft in front of us, the feet dangling as air brakes.

In doing this I was able to get in close to show the tube nose, they are called ‘tube noses’ because they have a tubular nostril on top of the bill. This very specialist as it extracts salt from the sea enabling the bird to drink 

As all this was taking place at eye level some of the spectacular shots were as the Fulmar came straight at you with stiff wings.

Adding the cliff to provide some perspective and scenery.

Recognising that this was a Saturday and they people were now holidaying in the United Kingdom it was time to to ensure we were not caught up in traffic.  A wonderful day in one of my favourite places at this time of year.  Sea birds, butterflies and wild flowers, a wonderful recipe, it was just a shame we didn't manage to find the Puffins