Wildflower stroll in Durlston Country Park

After the excitement of  “Meet a Moth” day, we set off for a walk in the meadows around Durlston Country Park.  This has to be one of the best places in the UK for spotting wildlife, a 280 acre countryside paradise consisting of sea-cliffs, coastal limestone downland, haymeadows, hedgerows and woodland. At this time of year it is glorious, stuffed with birds, rare and unusual plants, butterflies and if you are lucky there are dolphins, whales and basking sharks to be spotted out to sea.

N knew which fields are home to the rare Early Spider Orchid and had seen them on a previous walk, but sadly it was too late in the season and the flowers were all finished. This was barely a dissapointment given the beauty of the meadows, decked out in the brilliant deep blue of Chalk Milkwort and fat, hairy clusters of Kidney Vetch.

The day was hot, but a cool sea breeze and a bit of atmospheric haze kept us from shrivelling up as we walked along the clifftops, watching guillimots on their nests and Kittiwakes zooming about below us on stiff wings. This pair of herring gulls were disarmingly affectionate, displaying to each other within a few feet of us. At one point the male coughed up a nice bit of fish for his mate, but rather ungallantly changed his mind and ate it himself… charming!

On the cliffs nearby we found some Houndstongue, it’s deep red flowers only just beginning to open.

Working our way inland we came across white drifts of Sea Campion.

Into one of the meadows now, where we spotted this brilliant green beetle eating buttercup pollen. It’s name, Cryptocephalus aureolus, seems bigger than the insect its-self.

Crossing some cow pasture, the short fine turf revealed tiny, delicate flowers of Eyebright. Each is only a couple of millimetres across.

Eyebright wasn’t the only thing that the short, grazed turf revealed. As we scoured the meadow for any sign of Early Spider Orchids, an even rarer flower came to light. This tiny Early English Gentian studded the turf with lavender stars, and though my picture is out of focus I still wanted to share this lovely little flower.

We did find some orchids eventually, in a meadow shining yellow with tall waving buttercups and filled with birdsong. But that I will save for another post…

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Jewels in the dirt

A couple of weekends ago I was walking along a muddy, tyre churned track looking at nothing much other than where to put my feet first so as not to slip over, when a chunk of dirt began to move. An iridescent pebble with legs was struggling faintly in the sticky mud. I stooped over to find a dor beetle, relative of the scarabs of ancient Egypt looking feeble and disorientated, legs flailing ineffectively.

A few metres further along I found a whole clump of them, royal purple glinting on their backs as they floundered together in the watery mud. I looked up along the track and saw to my astonishment that the ground for quite a considerable distance was strewn with living jewels and glittering carcasses where previous walkers had ploughed through unnoticing.

These hapless creatures had chosen the soft earth of the track as an ideal hibernating ground, and dug themselves in. Now weekend walkers and off road motorbike riders were churning them up again in their thousands. I stood aghast as I watched these simple animals attempting to re-bury themselves in the very same place that they’d just been dug out from, essentially a busy weekend road. How many will be left by the end of winter? These things are a dime a dozen but still…

I’ve been flabbergasted by this spectacle ever since, and although I don’t subscribe to the old chestnut of natures kindness (spend under 30 seconds watching a hunting wasp or spider and you will lose your illusions pretty damn fast) the profligate wastefulness and apparent stupidity of the natural world often troubles my peace of mind. Those dor beetles would diligently re bury themselves in their chosen “ideal” hibernating ground until not a single one was left.

If those beetles learned nothing, they taught me something. The old adage “keep doing what you always did and you’ll keep getting what you always got” suddenly seems a bit more important than I ever imagined.

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