My Dorset Holiday

Last week, I was on holiday with my parents to Dorset for a few days before heading to the Forest of Dean for an extra weekend holiday with Naturetrek. Here's what happened while I was out in Dorset...

March 9th   Durdle Door, RSPB Arne & Kimmeridge Bay

Durdle Door

After a long day of travelling on the Sunday (March 8th), we set off to explore on our first proper day in Dorset. We started at the natural coastal landmark of Durdle Door, a large arch carved by the sea. It was one of those places that you just had to take many scenic photographs.

Next up was RSPB Arne, a place I've always wanted to visit as it is the only place in the UK to boast in seeing all 6 species of British reptile (including the very rare smooth snake and sand lizard). Unfortunately, it was a bit chilly for any of them to show up during this visit. However, Arne isn't just famous for its reptiles, it also has Dartford warblers and sika deer that were more possible to look for at this time of year. We had a very long and very muddy walk around the reserve and were lucky enough to see one Dartford warbler briefly posing atop of a gorse bush as well as 2 distant spoonbills, a few red-breasted mergansers out on the sea, redwings in the wood and siskins and great spotted woodpeckers on the feeders by the car park, but no sika deer.

My Fossil collection

We returned to the visitor centre for lunch, but afterwards, the weather suddenly changed dramatically. A nice, yet windy morning became a very miserable, wet afternoon. Our plans for a second walk around Arne were dashed. We decided to move on to Kimmeridge Bay for a bit of fossil hunting instead. The Dorset coastline is famous for its fossils and is often known as the Jurassic coast. Palaeontology was thought to have began here. So, I thought it would be interesting to see what I could find, not that I'm an expert of course. Dad was the only one brave enough to venture down the slippery wet steps down to the beach to unearth what prehistoric marine treasures we could find. As soon as we reached the bottom, we were instantly finding fossils of ammonites. Within a few minutes, we had a small collection, which included one with a fossilised rib cage of some ancient fish. I have discovered the magic of fossils hunting!

March 10th  Lodmore, Radipole & Portland Bill

Our Dorset adventure took us to Weymouth on Tuesday. We were here for two RSPB reserves that happen to be right amongst the urban scenery. Lodmore and Radipole were both small wetland reserves with surprisingly abundant amount of wildlife in them despite busy roads, shops and other buildings surrounding them in every direction. Between these two reserves respectfully, I managed to see; tufted ducks, pochard, gadwall, shovelers, teal, mallards, shelducks, oystercatchers, cormorants, snipe, Canada geese, redshanks, marsh harriers, various gull species including Mediterranean, common and great black-backed, and I also heard bearded tits and Cetti's warblers. Not bad for a pair of urban nature reserves!

Just like the day before, it was a pleasant morning, but the afternoon turned stormy with strong winds and thick fog as we travelled to Portland Bill. Other than the red and white striped lighthouse and a few very brave rock pipits, there wasn't much to see, and with the weather being so bad, we didn't hang around there for very long at all.

March 12th  RSPB Arne

As March 11th was my birthday, we spent it at Paignton Zoo. It was a nice day, despite a slow start due to road closures causing us to detour, though it felt a bit of a long and tiring one. Our wildlife watching tour resumed the next day with a second visit to Arne as we felt we didn't fully explored it due to the weather last time. The weather was certainly better this time around.



Dartford Warbler

First we walked around Coombe Heath, just south of the car park. Other than meadow pipits and blustery conditions, it wasn't really the most memorable walk. That is if it wasn't for encountering a herd of female sika deer near the start of our little walk that gave us a bit of a stare down before making a weary approach towards us! These grey-brown deer with a bright white patch on their rear are not native, but are from Asia. Though they don't belong here, they certainly made this reserve their home and are surprisingly popular with visitors. Me included.








Sika Deer

After lunch, the weather continued to behave and was bright and cheery for the rest of the day, albeit with a small blip of rain before Dad and I set off for our second walk around the other half of the reserve. We visited the only hide on this northern half and saw the 2 spoonbills again as well as a possible Arctic tern, a flock of brent geese, wigeon, curlews, shelducks and little egrets. Then, we sat at the spot we saw the Dartford warbler on Monday, though this time it perched just metres in front of me, posing atop of a gorse bush long enough for many photos to be taken! We then continued our walk onto the beach, seeing red-breasted mergansers and great crested grebes before making our way back to the car, almost stumbling into a group of rather chilled male sika deer! It was quite a more memorable visit to Arne in contrast to Monday.