Three Historic Cemeteries in Edinburgh

 I'm continuing my wildlife survey of Edinburgh's cemeteries. This week my first cemetery was Liberton cemetery, which is much larger than it first seems. Liberton Kirk is a beautiful church, covered in Virginia creeper which is just starting to turn red as autumn approaches

The cemetery is made up of three parts, a central part around the kirk, which is full of historic graves and mature trees

and two more open outer parts, which are currently used for new burials and have views across the Arthurs Seat and Salisbury Crags

There are quite a few attractive gravestones in the cemetery, this beautiful dove is my favourite

This cemetery is a great place for mosses and lichens including this lovely moss Grimmia pulvinata: 

I was also quite surprised to see this beautiful pied hoverfly, I didn't realise they were still around  this late in the year 

 My next visit was to Canongate Cemetery, one of the historical city centre cemeteries which has some beautiful mature cherry trees and is another cemetery rich in mosses and lichens, including this Xanthoria parietina lichen

It's another cemetery with good views, this time across to Calton Hill

and the views from the lower end of the cemetery towards the church are beautiful too 

My final visit of the week was to St Cuthbert's kirkyard, another cemetery in the centre of Edinburgh, this time at the West End. This is a cemetery I often walk through while going from place to place, but have never before really explored. It is a fascinating and beautiful cemetery to spend time in. 

There are lots of mature trees and a lovely area of shrubbery that was full of birds when I visited

There are lots of lichens and mosses on the gravestones here and good numbers of insects, including lots of ladybirds. Plenty of insects means plenty of prey for spiders, and there are lots of them too in this cemetery. I was very impressed by this beautiful web, made by a species of funnel web spider 

There are also a lot of interesting gravestones, this one is my favourite: