Heather heaven

We’re all about the wildflowers this week on the Nature’s Home team, as you’ll see from Mark’s blog on rare machair meadows, and Emma’s on sunflowers, lavender and other wildlife-friendly garden favourites. 

Last week, I was down on the Dorset coast again, wandering amid the sunlit heath at RSPB Arne with my family, and was enjoying the heather being in full bloom. The entire landscape was painted deep purple – a glorious technicolour version of its former self, and buzzing with butterflies, bees, grasshoppers and jewelled dragonflies. 

My daughter, enjoying the heather blooms last week at RSPB Arne. 

Centuries ago, ordinary people slept on beds stuffed with heather, and yet also used it in construction projects to firm up soft ground. As a child I lay on living cushions of the stuff, picking bilberries from Cumbrian fellsides. It’s both soft and strong. And right now, it’s in full vigour.

I could see at a glance that there were different purples going on. A variety of wild heathers bloom across the UK, with “ling” (Calluna vulgaris) and bell heather (Erica cinerea) the most common. It needs open, sunny ground and acidic soil to grow, but seems pretty tolerant of moisture variance, growing on mountain bogs and sandy coastal soils alike.  

A heather-clad walk to Arne's sandy cove – a must if you're in Dorset this season. 

Despite being barely knee-high, heather provides a vast, self-sustaining jungle to the tiny creatures it supports. It’s one of our best plants for wildlife, and the perfect habitat for most of our reptiles, including rare smooth snakes and sand lizards - plus a vast, colourful cast of invertebrates. Here are just five of my faves, some of which feature in the heathland feature you’ll find in the current issue of RSPB Nature’s Home:

5 WILDLIFE SPECIES THAT LOVE HEATHER

1. Green tiger beetle (Cicindela campestris)

This jewelled, metallic bug shares the heather’s love of sunny, open spaces, where it sprints around catching the ants, spiders and caterpillars that live among the shrubs, despatching them with fearsome mandibles. Even the larvae are formidable, often ambushing and devouring adult beetles! 

2. Silver-studded blue butterfly (Plebejus argus)

Photo: Gail Hampshire 

Named for the light-blue reflective scales on its underside, they rather ingeniously hire local ants as babysitters. The caterpillars emit pheromones which prompt the ants to carry them into their colonies and keep them safe and dry until they emerge as butterflies. Nature never ceases to amaze me! 

3. Pink crab spider (Thomisus onustus)

Adjusts its own colour to match a particular heather so it can hide, motionless, on a blossom. Then - boom! - passing prey won’t know what hits them. 

4. Heather bee (Colletes succintus)

Fuzzy orange body, banded black abdomen, this mining bee LOVES heather pollen and can be found in flight this season, browsing those ling blooms. 

5. Smooth snake (Coronella austriaca)

Photo: Ben Andrew (rspb-images.com)

I love snakes, and this one is the UK’s rarest, restricted to Dorset, Hampshire, W Sussex and Surrey - though they’re more widespread across the Channel. They use the heather to stay hidden while basking, winding their sinuous bodies around the shrub’s stems to blend in. They resemble a slim adder, but are not venomous, squeezing their prey (small mammals and reptiles) and swallowing the poor things alive. I’ve never seen one, but I’d love to!

So head out and enjoy nature’s purple carpets while they’re at their most glorious… We’d love to hear about where you go and what you see. Log in to comment below, or email the magazine.