Spring Saunters in East Devon & Dorset

Spring on the Jurassic Coast is a time of hazy pastel skies over luminous clear waters. The crumbling red sandstone on the western end of the coastline gives way to great swathes of chalk and limestone cliffs and coves, a vivid blue sea washing around breathtakingly white stacks and islands, topped with grass and spring flowers and nesting seabirds.

The chalk grasslands to the east are crammed with a huge array of wildflowers where early insects browse. Further west the paths and ancient green lanes are vivid with banks of tumbling blossom on the black-branched thorn bushes, and between them the bright gorse flowers are fresh and new. Migrant birds arrive in large numbers to breed on the cliffs and estuaries: wagtails and wheatears, whitethroats and warblers, terns and skuas, waders and gannets.