At this time of the year it is the yellow of the daffodils and primroses and the rich tones of rare red squirrels as they scamper among the oaks and hawthorns, that catch the eye on Brownsea Island.
But an ambitious conservation project to turn swathes of this idyllic spot off the coast of Dorset into a summertime riot of purple and violet is under way.
The custodians of the island, the National Trust and the Dorset Wildlife Trust, are expanding and linking fragments of heathland, encouraging the return of hectares of heather.
They aim to recreate the sort of Dorset heathland that inspired Thomas Hardy, who evoked the power and mystery of wide-open landscapes in novels such as The Return of the Native and The Mayor of Casterbridge.
The project is intended to improve the habitat of threatened birds such as the nightjar, a rarely seen nocturnal hunter, and the Dartford warbler, as well as for the 18 species of dragonfly and six species of bat that have been recorded here. It should also improve habitats for lizards, slow worms and the island’s most iconic resident, the red squirrel.
As Brownsea Island prepared to greet the first visitors of spring on Saturday, Tim Hartley, lead ranger for the National Trust, explained that over the centuries the heathland on the island had shrunk and become fragmented.
“We want to enlarge those pockets of heathland and knit them back together,” he said. “Heathlands depend on human intervention for their survival and what we’re doing is mimicking the work of our ancestors to make sure that the landscape, and the wildlife that depends on it, is still here in centuries to come.”
Heathlands, with their gorse and heather, were widespread in England for centuries, formed by farmers to graze their animals and kept alive by the sort of rural people immortalised in Hardy’s work.
A drive for productivity in the 20th century saw much of this wild landscape lost in favour of wooded areas and more intensively cultivated farmland. It is believed that only a sixth of the UK’s lowland heath remains, mainly in isolated pockets surrounded by towns and cities.
Over the decades, Brownsea changed from a heather-rich island to one dominated by trees and gardens. In the 18th-century, landowners planted pines and created orchards and walled gardens, with little thriving in the shadow of the pines. In the early 20th century, the reclusive Mary Bonham-Christie, nicknamed the Demon of Brownsea, allowed nature to run riot, causing the island to become choked with invasive rhododendron, which loves the acidic soil. The National Trust took over exactly 60 years ago.
During the winter, while Brownsea Island has been shut to visitors, clumps of Scots pine have been thinned to let in more light. Workers are also in the process of removing 12.5 hectares (30 acres) of rhododendron.
Heather cuttings will be taken from existing patches and scattered across bare soil, allowing new clumps to grow. Seed is being collected from the Purbeck heaths national nature reserve on the mainland and ferried to Brownsea. Twenty five hectares of heathland is to be restored during the five-year project.
Naturally, great care has been taken to ensure the red squirrels, for whom Brownsea is one of only two stable enclaves in the south of England, will benefit.
Hartley said: “By opening up these woodlands, we’re making space for trees to regenerate and encouraging them to form lower branches and bigger canopies, which means more food and better homes for red squirrels.” He said the idea was not to clear all trees but to create a diverse wooded heath habitat.
Luke Johns, Poole harbour reserves officer at Dorset Wildlife Trust, said the project would make a huge difference to wildlife habitats on the island.
He said: “Our nature reserve in the northern part of the island provides sanctuary for rare and threatened species, from tiny insects and ground-nesting birds to the rare red squirrel and the water vole in its woods, reed beds and lagoon. These heathland and woodland restoration works are going to improve, expand and link up habitats across the island.”
