There's So Much Life in the Cemetery

 Crafty Green Boyfriend and I started walking through the local cemeteries every day for our allowed Daily Exercise when the coronavirus lockdown was first imposed. It's a habit we still keep to, regularly walking through these lovely green spaces. 

There's an amazing amount of wildlife to see and hear. A couple of days ago the sparrowhawks in North Merchiston Cemetery were making an enormous amount of noise, the youngsters were fledging and a total of seven magpies were chasing them around the tree tops. 

Here are some of the highlights from North Merchiston Cemetery from yesterday: 

One of the small clumps of ragwort in the cemetery is covered in cinnabiar moth caterpillars, which only feed on this plant 

Although these caterpillars are very commonly found on ragwort, this is the first time I've noticed them in the cemetery. 

Sadly many ash trees in the cemetery are infected with ash dieback disease and will need to be removed or cut right back (if they were growing in the middle of a forest they cound be left to die in their own time, but trees with die back become prone to collapse, and this could have tragic consequences in a public greenspace like a cemetery). It's particularly sad to see that one of the beautiful weeping ash tees has die back

There's a lovely patch of feverfew in bloom in the cemetery at the moment

and the thistles are just starting to become thistledown