Heather Beetle 2017!

An adult heather beetle

With warmer days and rising temperatures, heather beetles have been on the move. Dry conditions have helped to create the right conditions for heather burning, but beetles have been conspicuous as they begin to emerge from hibernation and start to disperse across open ground. We usually receive our first reports of beetles "out and about" in late March and early April, and some dispersals can be extremely dramatic. In previous years, gamekeepers have reported plagues of beetles which are so dense that they have had to use windscreen wipers on their vehicles in order to see where they're going. These are extreme cases, and most beetle dispersals will be subtle affairs as adults begin to search for breeding grounds and mates. The Trust's Project Manager Patrick Laurie saw a few beetles  on Sunday 26th, and it's not surprising that small numbers of these native insects should be moving around at this time of year.

The majority of beetle damage is caused in midsummer when beetle larvae emerge from their eggs and start to feed on fresh heather growth. Serious problems can be caused at this stage, and while a good deal of heather will simply regenerate and come back in subsequent years, extreme cases can result in the total death and destruction of thousands of acres of heather in a single season. When beetle attacks become cyclical, they can result in the total and permanent loss of heather coverage, and the Heather Trust believes that beetles may have been the driving force behind heather loss in some wetter western areas where damaged heather is easily over-grown by invasive grasses.

The Heather Trust has led the way on research into heather beetle for the past ten years, running the only national survey of beetle damage and funding important research into heather restoration after beetle outbreaks. We'd be very interested to hear from you if you see beetles dispersing this spring or if you've witnessed beetle damage in the past - let us know, view our previous surveys and find out more about heather beetles on our heather beetle page.

Heather Cutting in Practice

Cutting heather with a mini-tractor and flail

As the heather management season is now upon us, conditions have been perfect in many parts of the UK for burning. Near the Heather Trust's offices in Dumfries and Galloway, conditions have been wet for several weeks, and despite a few drying days at the start of March, the hills are decidedly soggy. When the conditions are right, burning is a crucial asset to have in the moorland management toolbox, but if the last few years are anything to go by in Western Scotland, things have been getting wetter and less conducive to fires.

Part of the answer is to cut heather rather than burn it, and it was very satisfying to visit work undertaken by Heather Trust members Lawrence and Penny McNaught this afternoon on an area of heather ground near Dumfries. Even if the weather had been perfect, the hill is surrounded on three sides by commercial forestry, and there would be legitimate concerns about fires in this kind of ground considering that much of the heather is long, rank and could burn extremely vigorously in the wrong conditions.

The Heather Trust has been focussing on heather cutting for the past four years, and we produced a Briefing on the key considerations relating to mechanical management. Certain types of cutting were particularly suited to this ground, and we were happy to provide advice and support in the autumn when plans were being made. Contractors arrived yesterday and made impressive progress putting cuts onto the hill with a small tractor and a flail mulcher. The small tractor was crucial to gain access through wet fields without causing too much damage, and the speed with which the flail cut through the heather made up for the narrow width of each pass.

This work is being driven by a desire to improve the sporting assets of the hill, which once was renowned for its grouse. Nowadays there are not enough to support even a symbolic harvest, so it is hoped that this investment and effort will be repaid in a brace or two of walked up grouse on the Glorious Twelfth. The work should also benefit a small but strategically significant population of black grouse and could also be of use to ring ousels which have declined dramatically in Galloway over the past fifty years.

The Heather Trust is always keen to provide advice and support to projects both great and small, and we believe that integrated, balanced management can tick multiple boxes, from sport and conservation to agriculture and tourism. We wish the McNaughts well with their project, and we look forward to catching up with them again soon!