pistols at dawn

...my apologies for the late blip and slow commenting, both of which are the happy result of having family visitors for the weekend.

Well, not exactly dawn but by 7.30am I was walking on Ballard Down in search of one of the Adonis Blues Polyommatus bellargus that I glimpsed yesterday evening.

There is a sheltered spot where, once they have emerged, they like to sun themselves early in the morning, so that is where I went first. As it turned out, this place was still in the shadow of the hill and the overnight mist had left the ground with a very heavy dew. With this in mind, I decided to continue along the Purbeck Way, up onto the ridge and then back via the monument to where I started.

While strolling up to the ridge path, I came across two separate foxes at close quarters. One had a black tail tip while the other's was white. The buzzards were already up hunting and a green woodpecker made me jump out of my skin with an unexpected alarm call. There is a section of path before the monument that is enclosed and the brambles that edge it were covered in literally hundreds of gatekeepers, warming up in the morning sun.

By the time I got back to the spot where I hoped to find an Adonis, the sun was shining full on it and the grass had dried nicely. It didn't take me long to find a beautiful male Adonis. As I walked back home, I was filled with a lovely feeling of wellbeing...