Dorset again, again, two

Some more bits from the weekend.

Unrelated sparrow

The walk from Swanage, up onto the ridge and along to Corfe village is, simply put, amazing. The views from on top of the eponymous barrows on Nine Barrow Down are near 360 panoramas over Purbeck and Poole Harbour and in the weather we had, truly stunning. I have enough images from up there to stitch together into a big photoshoppy mess, but I can't be doing with that right now. Coming down off the top and into the village has to be one of the most "English" views I've ever seen, with the castle and village both straight out of a picture book.

Bird-wise it didn't throw up many surprises, but who cares when you're somewhere that amazing? There were at least 5 pairs of stonechats along the walk, several ravens overhead, ever-present buzzards, linnets and whitethroats and so on. Butterflies were good up there, with adonis blue being pretty much the most common species. Other firsts for me were green hairstreak and brown argus, with a single wall being the first I've seen in a while. We had hoped for small and chalkhill blues, but weren't able to find them. Coming down into Corfe we had a few yellowhammers, a group of three bullfinches, a peregrine overhead and a very pale common buzzard with nice obvious carpals which, with it's heavy moult and long winged appearance had me going for a moment...

Nearly good...

In the evening we took a boat trip along the coast to the various seabird colonies. This lone puffin was the best bird. They have a tenuous hold on the south coast, with an estimated 25 birds summering last year, the maximum seen at one time being 17. Breeding is only suspected, but not proved. However, the guillemot and razorbill numbers are rising which I suppose implies there's enough food locally for the puffins to use. The peregrine from the previous day was nowhere to be seen.

An afternoon visit to Portland Bill was pleasant, if slightly disappointing on the bird front. It had been pretty quiet for a few days when we visited, but it's always worth a poke around. Best birds were two spotted flycatchers in the Obs garden and two female wheatears on the Bill itself. The wheatears - both females - were noticably different, with one bird slightly larger and markedly peachier on the breast, the peach extending further back underneath the body. The image shows the colour difference but not the size difference. Interesting, huh?

No, this is not interesting at all.

These are filed under "hooray chromatic abberation!" and "good opportunities missed through poor skill and cheap gear".

I was going to be restrained and not post loads of shite pictures, but that resolution appears to have fallen by the wayside, along with the one that I made when I started this thing that I wouldn't just write endless "lol i went hear and seen this" posts. Sorry, but that appears to be what I'm doing right now with just about every post I make. Bugger.

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The big office move is tomorrow, which is just fine by me. The black redstarts, after their day of hot red-bottomed displaying, sexing and nest building haven't put in a single appearance. I've not seen or heard them anywhere in the area. Potters Field and exciting birds on the Thames await...