Me

Hello, and thanks for stopping by.

I am very lucky to live where I do, which is right on the south coast of Dorset in England, in a place called Southbourne. This site is about me sharing the wonder of the surrounding areas and beyond in the best way I can, and perhaps even inspiring some people to go and check them out for themselves.

Close by to me, just to the the East, is a beautiful coastal nature reserve called Hengistbury Head, a mere five-minute walk from my front door. It’s a heathcapped golden sandstone headland with bird filled woods flanking its northern slopes, in which lurk dark brackish lilly filled pools. To the south is a long strip of sandy beach fringed with marram grass and low dunes. Lumps of Ironstone protrude from the high crumbling cliff faces above and the Natterjack Toad claims sanctuary here. I go here a lot and am grateful to have it so close to hand.
A few miles to the north east I have the newly created National Park of the New Forest, where I grew up and know intimately. It is a place of ancient trees and traditions, huge open heathland, rare and important wetland and boot sucking bogs. It’s also a haven for wildlife and I never tire of exploring its hidden waterways and deep woods.
To the North and to the Northwest, are rolling chalkdowns and further patches of sadly ever decreasing lowland Heath. There are only 58,000 hectares of lowland heathland left in Britain, about 20% of the total world resource.
Two hundred years ago, the Dorset Heaths covered over 150 square miles in huge areas, intersected only by river valleys. Over the years, forestry, incessant building and industrialised agriculture have all taken their toll and today only around 30 square miles remain, much of it in small, unconnected fragments.
These sites now represent around 10% of Britains heathland and 2% of all that remains in Europe as a whole. They offer refuge to all 5 of Britains remaining native Reptiles, and are also home to rare species of Bird, such as the elusive Dartford Warbler. In my opnion, they are an environment every bit as distinct and unique in their own right as the Rainforests or Desert. Late summer on the Heath, with its vivid displays of gold, pink and purple heather can be a beautiful, resplendant spectacle.
The Dorset Downs, which diaganolly cross the middle of the county in a northeasterly direction, have created some wonderful vistas and places to explore. Folded and deeply creased in places, the high chalk escarpments and hills offer stunning views of the county to gaze out across, with wild flower meadows, magical bluebell woods and miles of patchwork fields spread out to the horizon beneath them. Despite extensive agriculture, they provide much-needed habitats for many rare species of Butterfly such as the Lulworth Skipper, found only around the small coastal village of the same name.
Holloways, the deep trench like ancient highways of the early human inhabitants lay hidden in secret networks through this landscape too. These are tunnel like narrow lanes, long forgotten and unused byways cut deep into the earth by the passage of humans moving between settlements for thousands of years.
Rivers, like the Stour, the superbly named Piddle, the Axe and the Frome amongst many others also meander their way through the county on their journey to the sea. They are a network of vital water ways for all manner of creatures, such as the recently resurgant Otter and many different jewel-like Damsel and Dragonflys. Once heavily posioned by pesticides, better farming practices are helping to restore these aquatic habitats back to their former state, although there is still a lot of work to be done.
Earthworks, burial mounds, even the odd standing stone are strewn around the landscape too. Having a fascination for the coast, these are inland areas I’ve not explored as much as I would have liked to, but hopefully intend to broaden my knowledge of as I continue to seek out the quiet wild places that are as yet unfamiliar to me.

Then, to the west of me, there’s the Dorset Coast, one of the famous jewels in Britains crown of natural wonders. From its beginning (or end, depending on your direction of travel) near Highcliffe in the East to Lyme Regis, 92 miles away in the west on the border with Devon, it is a stunning, sometimes breath taking linear portrait of monumental forces operating on timescales that are hard to truly appreciate.
It is where I first started to attempt photography beyond that of point and shoot, and a place that has given me some of the most memorable moments of my life, when I have felt truly connected to the natural world around me, be it through Geology, Meteorolgy or Zoology. It has taught me, sometimes harshly but always honestly, how fickle and boisterous Mother Nature can be, as well as how sublimely wonderful.

There are places along this transient strip where land meets water that can make you feel like the only person on the planet, that can create the feeling of being the first to ever step foot there, of sheer timelessness.
In an overcrowded, industrialised part of the country where it’s hard to escape the trappings of modern life, places like this are a priceless resource for the mind and body that we, or at least i, cannot do without.

Outside of my immediate area, I continue to explore other places too, as time allows, and to try to do them justice as well. I also have a yearning for the high mountain tops of the UK which i get to as often as i can too..

I hope you enjoy some of the images you find here and if any of them inspire you to go and explore these places for yourself, then they will have served their purpose.

Paul