Colourful Snails and more at Craigmillar Castle Cemetery

Craigmillar Castle Park Cemetery is located on ground that used to be part of the grounds of Craigmillar Castle. It has wonderful views to Arthur's Seat and the Salisbury Crags

I was surveying the wildlife in this cemetery today as part of the survey I'm currently doing of all the council owned cemeteries in Edinburgh. 

There are some lovely lichens on the trees, including this Xanthoria parietina (the yellow-orange lichen in the photo below)

There were also snails in many of the trees, possibly getting ready to hibernate for the winter. Most of them were, I think, banded snails (Cepaea nemoralis) which is a very varied species as the photos below show

Apparently the cemetery has a problem with rabbits eating the floral tributes that people lieave on the graves

but this feline visitor reportedly loves hunting rabbits, so probably keeps the problem within reasonable limits 

While I was in the cemetery, carrion crows were busy mobbing both a sparrowhawk and a buzzard. Plus a couple of skeins of pink footed geese flew overhead on their winter migration.