Dorset, again, again.

And so concludes possibly the geekiest (long) weekend of my life. We, being the Girl, this guy, his fiance and me, started with Spiers and Boden on Wednesday night in Shephards Bush, excellent folky entertainment, before heading down to Dorset the following day. Three days of birding, walking, beering and steam-train-appreciating ensued, leaving me with a fair few year-ticks (I'm still not counting, just recording), aching legs, and just over two and a half gigs of photos to work through. Some of them aren't total bollocks, either. Most of them are though, so you can look forwards to that over the next couple of posts.

Thursday afternoon at Durlston gave us the usual cliffy suspects and a singing lesser whitethroat and the other usual warbly-chatty-titty things. Best bird there, possibly of the whole trip, was this tatty peregrine, hunting along the breakers. It really performed for us, and even as someone who doesn't really get the obsessive thing some people have for peregrines I don't see how anyone - birder or not - could have failed to find the spectacle impressive.

I'm genuinely quite pleased with these. I know that says a lot about my near-total lack of photography skills, but pleased I am.

After the customary fish and chips (and an obliging rock-pipit on the beach in the town centre) we headed out to Arne for and evening walk. Stopping on the way gave us a few yellowhammers and some stunning views of the countryside, this on the Swanage-Corfe road just outside Corfe.

We had Arne and the heath to ourselves, sharing it only with a few stonechats, a dartford warbler and enough cuckoos to give any dunnock or reed warbler the shits. These called almost constantly even after darkness fell. We eventually heard three or four nightjars churring though we were unable to see any of them, and as we pulled away a whinchat was flycatching in the headlight beams.

And that's all I'm writing for now. Have a stonechat, taken up on Nine Barrow Down. This one's a bit better than the whinchat.