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You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jul/16/blue-butterflies-black-ants-thrive-new-forest-heath-country-
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| Blue butterflies and black ants thrive on a New Forest heath | Blue butterflies and black ants thrive on a New Forest heath |
| (3 days later) | |
| To seek a commanding view of Yew Tree Heath, I climb a wartime relic. In 1939, an anti-aircraft battery was set up here, with a control centre whose mound offers me the view that I’m after. The tree-line has etched the horizon for millennia. It still does where the chimneys of Marchwood’s industry have not intruded with jagged fingers of concrete, and huge metallic structures are not rearing over it like an alien army poised to attack. | To seek a commanding view of Yew Tree Heath, I climb a wartime relic. In 1939, an anti-aircraft battery was set up here, with a control centre whose mound offers me the view that I’m after. The tree-line has etched the horizon for millennia. It still does where the chimneys of Marchwood’s industry have not intruded with jagged fingers of concrete, and huge metallic structures are not rearing over it like an alien army poised to attack. |
| Below me, the heath drops steadily away through hectares of heather, with patches of grey-green gorse and burgeoning bracken, segmented by gritty footpaths. Nearby, two bronze age burial mounds have watched over this ground from long before it was heathland. | Below me, the heath drops steadily away through hectares of heather, with patches of grey-green gorse and burgeoning bracken, segmented by gritty footpaths. Nearby, two bronze age burial mounds have watched over this ground from long before it was heathland. |
| They may have seen it cleared of trees, and have watched as early farmers tried to eke out a living, and even felt themselves being dressed as plants invaded, able to flourish in such nutrient-poor soil. | They may have seen it cleared of trees, and have watched as early farmers tried to eke out a living, and even felt themselves being dressed as plants invaded, able to flourish in such nutrient-poor soil. |
| Flecks of cotton grass wave in the breeze: a warning to me to proceed with caution, for there is mire ahead. As I follow the slope down, white-beak sedge, yellow bog asphodel, and a serpentine shape catch my eye. It’s the rim of a wellington left in the bog when someone took a step too far. | Flecks of cotton grass wave in the breeze: a warning to me to proceed with caution, for there is mire ahead. As I follow the slope down, white-beak sedge, yellow bog asphodel, and a serpentine shape catch my eye. It’s the rim of a wellington left in the bog when someone took a step too far. |
| Silver-studded blue butterflies are everywhere. The small ants I have to dust from my bag are possibly the reason why there are so many of these lovely insects here. These butterflies depend on a species of black ant. The caterpillar forms inside the egg and stays there in hibernation all winter. | |
| In spring it hatches to feed on heathland plants. Secreting a sugary substance, it is quickly adopted by the ants, which tend it all the way to maturity, even guarding the newly emerged adult while its wings inflate and dry. | In spring it hatches to feed on heathland plants. Secreting a sugary substance, it is quickly adopted by the ants, which tend it all the way to maturity, even guarding the newly emerged adult while its wings inflate and dry. |
| The ants must do a good job, because there are red-banded sand wasps here searching for caterpillars that they paralyse to leave alive in their nest holes by the trackside as food for their offspring. | The ants must do a good job, because there are red-banded sand wasps here searching for caterpillars that they paralyse to leave alive in their nest holes by the trackside as food for their offspring. |
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