Brownsea Island | - Click on the image above to view gallery
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 On the chain ferry The weather wasn’t as good as it had been the previous two days which was such a shame as Poole Harbour really did look very dull under the overcast low cloud, but it was still sunny at times and at least it wasn’t raining. We had left our hotel in Lulworth Cove after a quick walk down to the beach first thing and headed for the Chain Ferry that would take us from Studland to Sandbanks, cutting out the long journey via Wareham. All was going well until we found ourselves in the one way system in Sandbanks and couldn’t find our way to a car park for the ferry taking us the short distance to Brownsea Island. Before we knew it we were in Poole itself, which wasn’t a problem as we knew that a ferry went to Brownsea from there too. As it turned out, because we went from Poole, we had a very nice surprise at the end of the day but more of that later.  Tree on the beach
It wasn’t long before we had made our way down some steep steps to the beach, the sun was doing its best to shine but there was a strange light and sadly there were no distant views of Poole Harbour. It was still nice to watch the Oystercatchers feeding on the tide line. We spent quite some time walking a lot of the paths on the Island so I was quite surprised when I looked at my pictures and found there were in fact very few showing what the different areas on the island are like. I think it had a lot to do with the light being so flat that I didn’t feel inspired to take any pictures.
What did inspire me though and what certainly made our day was when we got some cracking views of the lovely Red Squirrels. Brownsea Island is well known for being the only place in the South of England where this endearing animal lives, due to there being no competing Grey Squirrels. To encourage the Red Squirrels so that visitors can see them the staff at the visitor centre put out some peanuts on one of the windowsills. If you go around the back of the building and wait quietly it’s quite likely that a squirrel will eventually come to this easy source of food and so it was. We spent a long but enjoyable time watching these lovely little creatures collecting the peanuts and then rushing off trying to find somewhere to bury them.
 Red Squirrel 1  Red Squirrel 2 At one point there were three of them rushing about and at times they really did come quite close. To add to the confusion a peacock was also trying to get a free meal of the peanuts and on more than one occasion was seen off by one of the Squirrels. All this Squirrel watching meant we were suddenly looking at our watches checking the time the last ferry leaves the island (it was at 5pm). In the end we caught the ferry that left at 4.20 thinking we’d very soon be back at Poole. What we hadn’t expected though was a tour of the harbour on the boat. There are many islands in Poole Harbour including one where they are drilling for oil but you would never know it as all the drilling equipment is completely hidden. The tour lasted about 40 minutes and the entertaining commentary certainly added to the enjoyment of this unexpected tour.
It had been a very enjoyable day even if the weather wasn’t quite the best, but we really could easily have spent much more time on Brownsea Island itself as there were many areas such as the reserve looked after by the Dorset Wildlife Trust that we sadly ran out of time to see. If we are ever in the area again I know we would happily visit again.
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Maggie
Just been catching up with your latest albums and thought I would let you know how good I think they are. Also a question, we saw a red primrose yesteday. It was the first I can remember seeing and wondered if you knee anything about them.
Regards,
Dave