Wildlife on the Cliffs

The Purbeck Marine Wildlife Reserve extends to the cliff tops and contains a variety of terrestrial habitat. The clay cliffs of Kimmeridge are generally too unstable to support a wide variety of plants and animals but the chalk cliffs are rich in flowers, butterflies and birds.

Plants

Plants that can survive at the back of the beach, above high water mark where they are regularly splashed by waves, are very specialised and restricted to a few hardy species such as rock samphire, sea rocket, sea kale, and sea sandwort. They have deep or extensive root systems to help stabilise them in the mobile beach material and to seek out pockets of nutrients scattered below. They also have fleshy leaves to store scarce fresh water and protect from the drying effects of wind and salt spray.

Specialities of the clay cliffs include yellow-horned poppy and wild cabbage, species that are very restricted nationally. Other more common cliff plants such as thrift, sea campion and wild carrot put on a fabulous display in late spring and summer.

Invertebrates

The great prize of this coast is the Lulworth skipper butterfly which can be found in August on the chalk and limestone downs.

The beach is home to a host of terrestrial invertebrates which feed on the strandline when the tide is out and then migrate back to the cliffs out of reach of the waves when the tide comes in. This very specialist group includes species of beetle, centipedes, predatory spiders and many more.

Several species of kelp flies also lay their eggs in the strandline where the larvae can feed on the rotting seaweed before hatching en masse on warm sunny days.

Mammals

Deer are commonly seen on the clifftop grassland and the Gad undercliff while brown hare is a common sight on farmland behind the cliff edge. Weasels and stoats can sometimes be seen running along field boundaries. Bats and a variety of mammals that live along the coast can be found scavenging around the strandline at night when the tide is out.

Birds

The reserve is a good place to look for migrants in spring and autumn but it is also home to a number of species year round. An important colony of cormorants breeds on Gad Cliff and these large seabirds can usually be seen hunting fish close to shore, especially in the corner of Kimmeridge Bay by the slipway. These limestone cliffs are home too for other impressive species such as peregrine and raven.

The Kimmeridge clay cliffs do not provide good nesting sites but the rock pipit, probably the most common bird on beaches in the reserve, lives here, feeding on tiny molluscs and strandline creatures. Oystercatchers can be seen along the water's edge all year round, occasionally nesting on some of the more remote beaches in summer while in winter their numbers are swelled by migrants from Europe.

Grey heron stand out on the rocky ledges at low tide watching for fish in the shallows, while wading birds, from the small dunlin to the large curlew, feed along the water's edge.

Gulls frequent the reserve's bays in winter. Large flocks of black-headed gulls shelter in Kimmeridge Bay, often mixing with herring gulls and the largest of all, the great black-backed gulls.

Wild Cabbage