Heathland birds
Heathland is important for birds like the nightjar, stonechat and the much rarer woodlark and Dartford warbler. Many other common or garden birds are heathland visitors, living in neighbouring gardens or woodlands, making Dorset a bird-watcher's paradise.
Native endangered birds - Dartford warblers, stonechats and woodlarks
Dartford warblers and stonechats can be seen all year round on Dorset's heaths. They share singing perches and territories, nesting close to the ground, deep in heather and gorse bushes. Dartford warblers have a strict insectivorous diet; heather and gorse are great insect larders. Woodlarks have very specific habitat requirements, preferring heathland next to woods for their nesting sites. All these birds have essentially restricted themselves to living on heathland.
Migrant visitors - hobbies and nightjars
Hobbies and nightjars are summer visitors to heaths of Dorset. Hobbies can eat dragonflies mid-flight whilst nightjars use their whiskered faces and gaping mouths to scoop up the many night-time moths. Hen harriers stop off on their way to the moors of northern Britain.
