We had a fantastic walk along the Purbeck Coast this morning, topped off by seeing our first swallows returning. We left Swanage, passed Belle View Farm, crossed the Priest's Way and headed out to the cliffs, where we sat in the sunshine waiting.... and waiting until we saw 3 swallows in an hour! I don't think you could class them as flooding in yet, but they are flying in in ones and twos!
A patch of primroses in the sunshine alongside the footpath.
Not a breath of wind or a cloud in the sky.
The lambs we saw a couple of weeks ago are filling out and looking less fragile, but just as cute!
First sight of the sea.
We sat overlooking the sea from high up on the cliffs, keeping an eye out for swallows and watching this fishing boat.
The gorse looked stunning in the sun, it's definitely at it's best at the moment, smelling delicately of coconut.
After nearly an hour of watching, drinking coffee (eating biscuits of course) and lazing about we carried on along the south west coast path as far as the lighthouse at Anvil Point, where we took a higher path back along the cliffs. We saw another eight swallows ducking and diving around at this point, it's good to see them back. We also saw a seven spot ladybird, another thing for us to report on the Springwatch survey along with the first swallows and
hawthorn flowers.
The lighthouse from a different direction to usual.
This peacock butterfly was very obliging and stayed put whilst I took it's photo, normally out comes the camera and 'see you later butterfly'! We saw a few peacock and tortoiseshell butterflies today, the sun obviously brought them out,
The sea in the bay was flat calm, perfect.
Back in the garden after a bit of lunch two or three seagulls set off a bit of a hullabaloo and were up above bombing a buzzard, who appeared to be taking very little notice of them! On closer inspection of the buzzard in this photo it has a tear in it's wing, I hope it doesn't hinder it in any way? (it didn't appear to)
We saw so many different birds today I decided to note them down, and I think it's quite a good list for a short walk of just under four miles.
rooks chiffchaffs
jackdaws kestrel
crows herring gulls
magpies swallows
sparrows shags
starlings cormorants
wood pigeons guillemots (5 in a line)
robin black backed gulls
chaffinches blackbird
blue tit great tit
wrens skylarks
buzzard
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