Despite being very familiar with Heathlands, having spent the last 3 winters volenteering on two National Trust owned ones, Godlingston and Holt Heath, I'd not actually seen them very much in the mid summer. Therefore, last Thursday came as a pleasant surprise.
We were ragwort pulling on Holt Heath and the bleak, brown, ant-filled wastes of winter had given way to a beautiful panorama of rare plants, buzzing insects and skylarks singing above us.
This is common cudweed (Filago vulgaris) which is a heathland specialist - quite rare although not protected like broad-leafed cudweed. I must admit it took a lot of searching through wildflower ident books to find it.
The whole heath was covered in spider's webs. I believe this is the web of the labyrinth spider (Agelena labyrinthine), a handkerchief-sized web with a funnel in the middle.
And fox gloves (Digitalis purpurea) which were growing through the gorse bushes and looking very lovely.
Info on these plants and animals looks pretty sparse, so I recommend you cut and paste the latin name if you want more info.
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