Moors the merrier for the colour purple

From the high ground of the North York Moors and Pennines, to the lowlands of Wickfield Heath, in Sheffield, Skipwith Common, close by York, or Thorne Moors, near Doncaster, the landscape is turning purple and the air assuming a heady fragrance of the glorious heather.

Indeed, heaths and commons once dominated our landscapes but are now banished to the uplands and a very few, usually tiny, patches in the lowland areas.

Thorne and Skipwith are great exceptions to this but only survive, and even they are much transformed, because they were so difficult to 'improve'.

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While for much of the year the less-discerning visitor may think these wild landscapes are rather bleak and dull, for the month of August at least, that is patently not the case.

Wonderful heather, ling, or Calluna vulgaris, dominates across vast swathes of moorland and heath as for a short time the greens and browns are turned to an unforgettable sea of purple; sometimes extending to the very horizon.

This is one of nature's free spectacles, so get out there and enjoy the experience while it lasts.

I've just returned from an annual pilgrimage to the Lizard Peninsula, in Cornwall, and there the common heather is joined by masses of cross-leaved heath, and especially by the luxuriant and almost Mediterranean, Cornish heath.

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Tourists flock to these rich tapestries of natural colour as they do to the Hole of Horcum, near Pickering.

On the high ground, with the unrivalled views to south and east, visitors stop and gaze at the vastness of the purple moors and the sheer splendour of the Yorkshire landscape.

Sit a while and inhale the sweet honey-scented air, and you might see the common lizard, Lacerta vivipara; its name reflecting how being 'viviparous' it gives birth to live young.

The reptile's eggs are retained inside the lizard's body rather than being laid in a nest, like the grass snake does.

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The lizards love to come out and bask in the hot sun, but blunder about in your size 14 walking boots, and they will quickly be off and into the tangle of dense heather stems and branches.

Their strong instinct for survival will send them scurrying for cover, so tread gently.

Professor Ian D Rotherham is a researcher, writer and broadcaster

on wildlife and environmental issues.

CW 14/8/10

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