Isle Of Purbeck (Tuesday 13th March 2018)

The Spotlight Kid and I arranged to meet at RSPB Arne in Dorset on Tuesday for a walk around the reserve, during which we saw spoonbills and sika deer,  followed by an al fresco lunch at the café there. We could have done the second trail in the afternoon but as the likelihood of seeing an osprey this early in the year was small we opted to visit the sea instead, and headed for the Old Harry Rocks near Studland.

The drive there included a heath where we might have seen dartford warblers among the gorse. We didn't but instead found a pair of blackcaps nearby.

The road used to be a railed horse-drawn tramway and at one point we encountered a grazing pony blocking the road. I stopped to get its picture and it was soon joined from a side path by a dozen or more wild horses. I knew as I pressed the shutter that if it came out as I hoped this picture would be my blip. I wonder if they are perhaps descendants of those tram-pulling equines?

A little further along we came to a field full of highland cattle with some whitish calves, and I got some pictures of these too.

We did indeed reach Old Harry Rocks which was populated with greater black-backed gulls and herring gulls, and on the way I saw a red kite hovering over a railway viaduct near Corfe Castle.

The Extra shows the path from Watery Lane up to Old Harry, and is rather deceptive because when I walked up to the tree on the left to see what was behind it I was momentarily terrified to discover a massive sheer cliffside drop to the Solent below.

At the end of our walks The Spotlight Kids's pedometer indicated we had covered eight and a half miles in total that day, and by the time I got home I had run up five hours of drivetime, the first proper excursion of the year.

L.
15.3.2018 (1852 hr)

Blip #2599 (#2349 + 250 archived blips taken 27.8.60-18.3.10)
Consecutive Blip #002
Blips/Extras In 2018 #042/265 + #15/100 Extras)
Day #2913 (567 gaps from 26.3.10)
LOTD #1742 (#1584 + 158 in archived blips)

Taken with Pentax K-1 and Pentax HD P-D FA 28-105mm f/3.5-5.6ED DC WR lens

Horses series
Dorset series
Landscape series

A Day In Dorset, 13 March 2018 (Flickr set of 29 photos)

Lozarhythm Of The Day:
Procol Harum - Conquistador (recorded live, 18 November 1971, Northern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium, Edmonton, Alberta)
from Procol Harum Live: In Concert with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra.
Gary Brooker (vocal, piano), Keith Reid (lyrics), Chris Copping (organ), Dave Ball (guitar), Alan Cartwright (bass guitar), B J Wilson (drums) with  The Edmonton Symphony Orchestra
As we drove along the South Middlebere tramway I was listening to Radcliffe and Maconie (TSK was in his car) which included an interview with Gary Brooker of Procol Harum. Conquistador was the opening track of their first album in 1967 and had been a single in Australia. Unusually the music had been written before the lyric. He had come up with the orchestral South American-inspired opening and middle section as he was driving up to Edmonton for this one-off concert with a symphony orchestra, an unusual occurrence at that time. The song opened the concert and was the first single to be taken from the ensuing album.

One year ago:
Melksham Froggie