When I moved to rural Somerset from India seven years ago, hunting for carnivores wasn’t high on my list of things to do. And yet yesterday I set out with my brother, an OS map and some sketchy instructions in a text from a friend. We spent a good few hours foraging through the heather, picking our way around gorse, scrambling around in bracken, discovering that it’s hard to find what you’re not sure you’re looking for. We came back, muddy and empty-handed. So I arranged to meet in the same place with the friend whose message had prompted this botanical safari.
We climb up a rocky pathway and then descend an escarpment on the other side. At one point, my friend veers off the track and I follow, clambering through a knee-high thicket of heather and gorse. The hillside is a pixelated blanket of many colours – flaming orange spikelets of bog asphodel, tiny mauve pompoms of devil’s bit scabious, and mosses of every shade from russet to lime green.
