Chaffinch

If you walk eastwards along the shingle beach at Ringstead Bay you come to a rocky beach made of chalk boulders and pebbles, at the end of which are some exciting wooden steps. If you venture up these you come to a wonderful wild area of scrub and grass that has never been farmed or inhabited. A smugglers' path zigzags up from here to the coastguards cottages at the top of the chalk cliffs. Looking back, you can get a sense of vertigo. For this reason I only ever walk up the path - never down.

This female chaffinch posed nicely for me in a blackthorn bush.

Walking back along the coast path I had good views of a peregrine and a wheatear.

On the way back I had another chance to photograph Sea Barn, my blip of 16 January.