Friday 3 December 2021

South Leith Cemetery

 

 I'm continuing my job of making wildlife surveys of all the council managed cemeteries in Edinburgh. Today I visited South Leith Cemetery, an ancient churchyard which is now surrounded by modern buildings and sits right next to a shopping centre. 

It's an attractive churchyard 

and is full of grey squirrels! There were at least ten of them chasing each other round the gravestones and it was quite tricky to catch one on film

Someone was in the churchyard feeding nuts and seeds to the squirrels and pigeons, I got the impression that they get fed every day! The feral pigeons lined up on nearby roofs 


 watching over the cemetery and flying off in a flock once in a while. 

Some of the gravestones had good numbers of ladybirds on them, mostly the invasive Harlequin ladybirds unfortunately, but also orange and 2 spot ladybirds which you can see in the photo below, crowding together with the Harlequins.

There's a secret seating area in the cemetery, hidden away, with a couple of nice benches 

and roses still in bloom,  

still in bud in fact!


4 comments:

Jeff said...

We have those bugs here--I always called them "fake-ladybugs". In the last 20 or so years they have become a real pain as they try to get inside as the weather cools.

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Sallie (FullTime-Life) said...

The rosebud is interesting and a little bit frightening as it may point out climate change -- my daughter reports the same thing from her garden in Oregon. I think your work documenting nature in the cemeteries is fascinating.

Crafty Green Poet said...

Hi Jeff, Harlequins are certainly a pest...

Thanks Sallie! The roses are probably a sign of climate change, roses in bloom at this time of year used to be a rarity, but it's certainly becoming more common.