High altitude visitor
Dotterel (Martin Kelsey) Relicts of late spring, the bristling ranks of taut, brittle thistle heads stand proud over the crisp, withered grasses. Ashen-coloured tumbleweeds of wild brassicas roll on the side of the track. Save the improbably tall and spindly flowering spikes of Sea Squill which fleck the terrain, the plains are a landscape at rest. It is an open stage, apparently empty, under an intense ocean-blue sky which carries an autumnal freshness. Cooler nights have driven the haze of summer away and the parched landscape now looks burnished russet, almost apricot gold, instead of the grey blond of August. The sweet melodic song of a Thekla Lark gently dominates, the rather stocky-looking bird slowing circling high above us. We are distracted only by the bubbling purr of Black-bellied Sandgrouse. Four swing in front of us, in direct low flight, barrel-bodied with agile, pointed wings, the white flash of the underwing in sharp contrast to their black tummies. They head to a