Sussex Heaths
Above: The silver-studded blue butterfly, gathers nectar from heather in full bloom
Picture by Colin Varndell
The biggest stretch of heathland in Sussex is Ashdown Forest, but over in the west there is a patchwork of smaller heaths of which Iping and Stedham Common is one of the finest examples. Heathland has often been derided as a barren, unproductive landscape with no thought to the intricate and specialised wildlife that has evolved to survive in this habitat. At Iping and Stedham, a Sussex Wildlife Trust reserve, heather and gorse are the dominant plants and in late August/early September the landscape is suffused with purple as the heather is blooming at its best.
Gorse provides one of Britain’s rarest breeding birds, the Dartford warbler, with everything it needs to survive including food and a breeding site. The razor-sharp spikes of the plant offers a safe place where they can build their nests deep in the bush and also provides a home to thousands of their spider prey on which they exclusively feed. In late July and August the silver-studded blue butterfly gathers nectar from the heather as it comes into full bloom. These butterflies have an extraordinary relationship with the ants that take the caterpillars into their underground chambers and tend them throughout the winter, ensuring that the adult emerges the following year.
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Heathland has its specialist birds as well. The Trust has cleared a lot of pine trees on Stedham Common to encourage the return of the heather and encourage woodlarks to breed. This cousin of the skylark has a wonderful song which fills the air during the spring and early summer.
However, the quintessential heathland bird is the nightjar. From late May to mid July the common reverberates at dusk onwards to the cat-like, almost mechanical sounding churring of the male as it broadcasts its presence to other nightjars. It really is a wonderfully evocative sound and really encapsulates the magical world of the lowland heath.
Iping and Stedham Common is an open access reserve north of Midhurst. There is a car park on the Elstead Road just off the A272. There are no stiles but there are gates to enable grazing to take place on the reserve.
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