DORSET: bIRDS, CASTLES and AMMONITES

Saturday, July 12. After having schlepped all day to get to Portland the day before, we got up early and immediately drove an hour back east, to get to Arne Bird Sanctuary, a favourite place for Anita and Nick. It's a bird and butterfly hotspot run by the RSBP, where I managed to snag 11 new species and Nick managed to see a type of moth he's been chasing for year. It was right near the gift shop. In the course of the day we racked up 30,000 steps, probably about 12 miles all up. Good practice for my upcoming long distance walk. 

Arne is massive, and we only saw about a third of it. It features plenty of woodland and estuary shoreline, but also heathland, where the bird nuts hang out in large numbers hoping to see Dartford Warblers, or some other brand of tiny featherball weirdos, who have become super-specialised to only eat the Dorset Heath, or something like that. My brain got flooded with natural history info after about 4 hours and I contented myself with photographing birds and landscapes. 

THEN, we got in the car and went to Corfe Castle, which I know because I once used an old map of it to run a Dungeons and Dragons campaign. The castle exterior, and nearby village, are excellent and we wandered around for ages taking photos and looking in antique shops. 

And THEN, we drive to Kimmeredge Beach, where fossil ammonites are commonly found on the shoreline. The beach turned out to be full of cheap-ass British tourists hellbent on smashing ancient rocks in the hope of finding souvenir fossils, and then wading out into the shallow waters of the English Channel for a dip. I also went for a dip - I had to lie down fully to get immersed. I saw one ammonite, and it was swell. 

But wait...the day was not over. We drove back to Arne through through the maze of single lane roads and went birding for another 2 hours in the late afternoon, before the real business of the evening began. Anita had booked us on a Nightjar Tour. Nightjars are strange creatures that sound a bit like a tiny lawnmower engine, and only emerge in the crepuscular hours of dawn and dusk. Last time Anita did the tour she saw several dozen, flying right over her head. This time we only saw two, but they were very beautiful against the sunset, and the sound of them was eerie in the fading light on the heath. A rare thing to see.

Then, finally, with my sciatica beginning to cripple me severely, it was back in the car and home to bed in Portland. I was asleep in five minutes.