SPECIES TO LOOK OUT FOR
Bell heather
This low-growing, bushy evergreen has dark green, needle-like leaves and clusters of purplish-pink, bell-shaped flowers. It carpets huge areas of many dry moorlands, so long as it is protected from heavy grazing. Bell heather favours dry, well-drained moors, with its flowers providing an excellent source of nectar for upland bees from July right through to October.
Cowberry
Often abundant on welldrained moors, cowberry is a straggling, evergreen shrub. It has small to medium-sized, oval and leathery, dark green leaves. In summer, it produces small clusters of pale, bell-shaped flowers. The berries that form are initially green, before turning an attractive bright red by winter. Though the leaves are poisonous, the berries are edible.
Red deer
Britain’s largest land mammal, the red deer, is a mightily impressive
creature to behold, as depicted by Sir Edwin Landseer in his famous painting Monarch of the Glen. By September, stags will have shed much of the velvet covering their antlers and as October draws near will also have begun bellowing across the moorland in their annual attempt to corral a harem of females together for the autumn rut.
Red grouse
Plump and reddish-brown, with a small head and short tail: there can be no mistaking the species upon which the economy of many moorlands is built. As September is the middle of the shooting season, any smart grouse will know to keep its head down, but the males’ crowing ‘go back, back, back’ call should reveal their whereabouts.
Merlin
This is our smallest falcon, famous for its direct, dashing flight as it chases meadow pipits, skylarks and chaffinches across the moorland. Many will move to lowlands and coasts as autumn progresses, returning in spring. The male can be distinguished from the larger, brown female, by his blue-grey back, which contrasts with a rusty breast.