By Sally Dalman

Are there many more beautiful sights in mid to late summer than that of a hillside covered in flowering heather? Against the backdrop of a blue sky and glorious sunshine, a sea of purples, pinks, and occasional whites, shimmering in the heat, there can be few more perfect sights. The hum of insect activity too can be heard, almost felt, from a distance amid the call of foraging birds.

Heather, whether it be Calluna vulgaris (ling) or Erica cinerea (bell heather), has long played a part in the landscape of Jersey, predominantly of the northern, rockier coastlines, but it can occur in any open landscape, wet and dry. In Jèrriais it is called d’la bruëthe, and has been used as many things through the ages: firelighters; bedding for farmers and their livestock; an orange dye (from the flowers); knife handles (from the roots), and, my personal favourite, it has been used to make beer.

It is also a favourite amongst much of our wildlife. Bees adore it, heather honey is a delicacy; some butterflies rely on it as a food source for their caterpillars; some birds, such as the choughs, like to line their nests with the newer, softer, shoots in spring; grazing livestock and rabbits like to eat those same soft, new shoots.

Heathers are a staple of the heathland flora, much preferring the acidic soils that most plants would struggle in. They flourish in areas where trees have been removed and the grazing of livestock has prevented their regrowth.

One component of the restoration project at Don Paton, Sorel Point, Mourier Valley and Devil’s Hole is the increase of heather in the existing heathland. The overall site had lacked any management for many years, before it was given to The National Trust for Jersey; the soil is too poor for arable farming to be successful, and the area had become overgrown with bracken, gorse, bramble and thick grasses. All of these other plants, of course, play their part in the habitat, but, left to their own devices, they will dominate and swamp any smaller more wildlife-friendly species. The National Trust rangers have worked hard to bring these other plants under control, and encourage those such as heather to gain a foothold.

Once areas had been cleared and more open spaces were created, with grasses growing, ably controlled, munched and fertilised, by the Manx loaghtan sheep, we could pinpoint areas where heather could be re-established.

Seed was collected from Les Landes by the States of Jersey rangers, as there is an abundance of well-established heather there. Les Landes is what we hope Don Paton will look like in a few years’ time, minus the castle and racecourse. After an application of sulphur had been applied to acidify the soils, the seed was scattered at Don Paton.

Once the heather had started to grow, we realised just how popular it was as a food source for sheep and rabbits alike, and decided that we needed to protect it before it was lost again. When it is well established, gentle nibbling will not be too much of a problem, in fact it will be of benefit, but until that time, a sheep and rabbit-proof shield was required.

A post and wire fence was put up one winter, on a cold, wet, wild grey day (are there any other type of day in a Jersey winter?!), much to the amusement of the sheep, who watched us struggling to bury the wire in the rocky soil. They then thought it was hilarious to jump over the wire just as we packed up for the day. We were not amused.

A second, taller layer of wire was put up, in an attempt to remedy the sheep jumping. They they decided to tangle their horns in it instead, which caused holes to appear. Rabbit sized holes.

A third attempt at protecting the heather, using stronger, taller wire (put up on a much sunnier day!) and at two much smaller sites than the first, has now been put up and, so far, seems to be keeping the animals out. We will be monitoring the areas regularly to ensure that the heather is not being eaten by the woolly jumpers or their bunny mates, at least until it is really well-established (or there is enough for the staff to start making beer!).

By Harriet Clark

The last few months at Sorel have been a busy time not only for the choughs, but also their neighbours; the resident flock of Manx Loaghtan sheep. The sheep play a vital role in the restoration of Jersey’s coastline, as their extensive grazing helps prevent the spread of invasive scrub and bracken, opening up areas for more sensitive plants to grow, which allows a mosaic of heathland vegetation to develop. The habitat created by the sheep supports a wider variety of wildlife, particularly specialist invertebrates and birds, and, therefore, helps restore biodiversity (see Grazing for background). The conservation grazing project is a partnership between The Reserve and the National Trust for Jersey.

Manx Loaghtan are extremely hardy sheep which thrive on coastal cliff tops, so are very well suited to their important job of grazing the area of coastline between Sorel and Devil’s Hole. They were introduced to the north coast by the National Trust for Jersey in 2008, and since then the flock has increased in number from 20 to 231, and the habitat where they are found has visibly improved, with bracken much less dominant in the areas they frequently trample.

The flock is managed by local shepherds Aaron le Couteur and Sam Hilton (CS Conservation), not forgetting of course their sheepdog Mist. Every day of the year the shepherds do a head count and visual health check of the entire flock; this can be a very time consuming job as the sheep are somewhat adventurous and are often found  scrambling along the steep cliff sides or grazing at the very bottom of the cliffs close to the shore. The adult rams are kept off site for safety, except for the less boisterous  wether “Buck” who acts as the flock guardian. Despite common thought, the number of horns is not an indication of sex, with both ewes and rams having 1, 2 or even 3 sets of horns.

The sheep breeding season begins in October, when the breeding ewes are taken from Sorel to the farm to meet the rams and, all going well, fall pregnant shortly after. The first and last months of pregnancy are very sensitive times, so the ewes are kept at the farm for monitoring, but in the interim the pregnant ewes often graze further ecologically important sites. After a five month gestation period lambing begins, with roughly half of the ewes giving birth to one lamb, and half to twins, which have a dark brown fleece that gradually lightens to a mousy brown. As with all sheep, Loaghtan ewes can occasionally have problems at lambing, so a few orphaned lambs were hand-reared by the shepherds this spring; an extremely intensive job as the lambs initially require 24-hour care and bottle feeding.

This year 121 lambs were raised, and after 3-4 months on the farm, they were moved up to Sorel with their mothers. Although the lush grassland of the farm may look ideal for the lambs, they are actually much better adapted to grazing on rough coastal scrub. Work for the shepherds doesn’t stop there though, as a couple of weeks later the ewes and lambs were rounded up for their vaccinations. After a just a few hours all 231 sheep were herded into the fenced off aviary field so that they could be checked and vaccinated, all the while observed by the choughs perched on the aviary roof, apparently quite interested in the spectacle!

Shearing is the next job, and the exact date depends on the weather conditions; Loaghtan wool is very high in lanolin wax, and in warm weather it becomes more viscous which makes shearing a much easier and faster job. The huge amount of wool produced is sold locally, creating extra revenue and reconnecting islanders with Jersey’s traditional knitting industry. Throughout the 16^th-19^th centuries the Island was an important exporter of knitted goods, so much so that the word “jersey”, describing a woollen sweater, is derived from the Island’s historical trade.

The final job for the shepherds during the busy summer period is weaning the lambs. When the lambs first arrived at Sorel in June they were still suckling, but once they reach over 12 weeks old they naturally begin the weaning process, ready for the ewes to be dried off. The lambs are, therefore, rounded up one more time and moved into aviary field for about two weeks, where they are out of sight of their mothers. Separating the sheep in this way allows the ewes’ milk to dry up and for them to put some weight back on, and the lambs to break the suckling habit in the least stressful way possible.

In addition to providing an extremely efficient habitat management service, the sheep also help produce essential feeding opportunities for the reintroduced choughs. Their grazing and trampling maintains short grass swards which the birds depend on for access to surface-active and soil invertebrates, and the sheep dung provides an important food source of beetle and fly larvae. Dung invertebrates might be particularly important for the choughs in spring and autumn when other insects are less abundant, or during dry periods when the ground is too hard for the birds to successfully probe into (see study by David McCracken here).

The maintenance of low intensity pastoralism is hugely important for the conservation of red-billed choughs throughout Europe, with several studies in the UK showing a significant relationship between sheep and chough populations.

Research on Ramsey Island, Bardsey and the Isle of Man (see IOM paper here) supports this link; in each case, reduced sheep grazing coincided with declines in the numbers of breeding choughs, and when grazing was resumed, the breeding chough populations began to recover.  The choughs at Sorel certainly seem to show an affinity to the sheep, and can often be seen feeding in close proximity to the grazing sheep.

Please, therefore, respect the sheep and the important service they provide to our wildlife when visiting the area, and remember if you have a dog, to always keep it under control.

By Christian Marcos

The Countryside Enhancement Scheme (CES) is an environmental improvement scheme open to all Jersey landowners, land managers, businesses, charities, schools, States departments and others. The scheme is funded by the States of Jersey and offers financial incentives that support and reward environmental initiatives through voluntary management agreements designed to look after Jersey’s countryside. This includes enhancement of wildlife, landscapes, historic features and natural resources (soils and water), as well as providing new opportunities for public access.

Last year, the Countryside Enhancement Scheme funded a project to clear large amounts of bracken from publicly administered land on the slopes west and east of Plémont in order to improve the condition and species diversity of these coastal habitats. A total of 17,151m² (9.5 verges or 4.3 acres) of bracken scrub has been cleared on this occasion.

In the past these steep slopes would have been managed by grazing animals, and by harvesting bracken and gorse for animal bedding and fuel respectively, giving opportunity for short, species-rich grassland and wild flowers to flourish. Today the only grazing which takes place is done by rabbits, which unfortunately is not enough to stop the gradual encroachment of gorse scrub and bracken.

The aim is to return the slopes to their former ecologically diverse coastal heathland habitat, encouraging fire-tolerant shrub vegetation such as heathers Calluna vulgaris and Erica cinerea, gorse Ulex gallii and broom Cytisus scoparius.

The project compliments Birds On The Edge objectives in conserving maritime heath, cliff and slope habitats which are listed as valuable key habitats in the Jersey Biodiversity Strategy (2000).

Access to manage the slopes is difficult due to their being so steep and being isolated from any close parking and other infrastructure. It is planned that a number of ‘holes’ be created in the coastal scrub with a more diverse vegetation within. The long term intention is to re-establish grazing to these slopes with the livestock foraging between these holes and ultimately linking them, creating habitat corridors. The first step is to create areas which can be grazed and which will supply a sufficient amount of fodder to sustain the livestock.

The contractor successfully cut the bracken scrub to ground level and then rolled it into piles of mulch at the bottom of the slopes. The team will return to the site in early June (2014) to treat any bracken regrowth with the fern specific herbicide Asulox.