Bedding down under a duvet of prickly gorse

FANCY a nice place to spend the night? What about right in the middle of a gorse thicket?

There is no plant pricklier in this country than gorse. Brambles, hawthorn, blackthorn, thistles and roses don’t come close. Gorse bushes are pin cushions like no other, and do their level best to make even the lightest of touches brushing past a painful experience.

And yet, as a spot to spend the night, there are few sheltered hideaways quite as safe.

Walking on west Dartmoor recently, I have noticed a group of pied wagtails gathering to roost at the edge of the moor. This black and white bird, which wags its tail up and down like a conductor’s baton, always gathers in groups well before dusk. It roosts in diverse places ranging from motorway service station roofs to trees in supermarket car parks, generally opting for locations which are out of reach of predators.

The group of a dozen, which I have been observing, assemble on a telephone wire before bedding down.

I wasn’t sure exactly where they finally ended up roosting, until I passed them a couple of days ago and watched as they all headed down into the gorse.

Once you wriggle your way deep into the thickets, there is probably no safer place. Sheltered from the worst of the elements and defended from predators, a gorse thicket is a place to sleep easy in the knowledge you are protected by a fortress of spines.

Come the winter, this upland site may not be the warmest spot, so I imagine they may eventually move down into the valleys. But, for the time being, a gorse duvet is the perfect place for forty winks.