It's pouring down just now, but at the weekend it was beautifully sunny and we had a lovely walk round North Merchiston Cemetery. This is one of the garden cemeteries of Edinburgh, which is no longer used for burials (unless you already have a family plot) and is mostly managed for wildlife.
and this moth, which I think is a Cream Wave Moth, though please correct me if I'm wrong, there are several similar looking species
We had a lovely walk around Braidburn Valley Park yesterday.
We walked there via Morningside, passing through the grounds of the Royal Edinburgh Hospital, Edinburgh's psychiatric hospital. The grounds of the hospital include a lot of greenspace, for the therepeutic value that such spaces offer for patients and are open to the public. There are a number of bright posters around the grounds mapping out the greenspaces.
The weather was so lovely this morning that I had a wander around Comely Bank cemetery.
You can see photos of my previous visits to this cemetery here.
Meanwhile, you may be interested in Inspiring Fungi, the latest post in my Substack blog.
It's not been a great year for insects overall, but two species of butterflies have had a good year, at least! Red Admirals have been recorded as having had a great year across the UK. Today, Crafty Green Boyfriend and I had a lunchtime walk in North Merchiston Cemetery and saw around 20-30 of these lovely butterflies in total. They were enjoying the ivy flowers, which are one of the few plants in flower at this time of year and offer an invaluable resource for insects of all species.
Today in the cemetery, we also saw a few hoverflies enjoying the ivy, including this Banded Hoverfly (Syrphus sp)
and this Drone Fly (Eristalis sp)
I've seen a good number of Speckled Wood Butterflies this year, though we didn't see any today. On a recent visit to the cemetery, we saw over one hundred Speckled Wood butterflies!
These pretty butterflies are one of the few beneficiaries of climate change (at least in Scotland) as the warming temperatures are allowing them to move further up the country.
Fox and Cubs is so called because the mature flowers ('foxes') are usually seen alongside buds ('cubs'). it's a very pretty flower and is currently in bloom in some of the grassy areas of North Merchiston Cemetery.
I wrote in a recent post, about how important grasslands are, not only for wildlife but also as they offer natural solutions to the climate crisis. Their value for wildlife is easier to show in photos, of course!
White Clover is also in bloom in the cemetery at the moment
offering vital food for bees and other pollinating insects. The other day when I walked round the cemetery, there were actually a few bees around, but only this one Buff Tailled Bumblebee allowed me to get a photo.
This Speckled Wood Butterfly was much happier to pose for photos
30 Days Wild takes place in the UK throughout June. I'll try to blog something about it every day, though that won't always be possible!
As many readers of this blog will know, we started visiting our local cemeteries every day when the first COVID lockdown was imposed, the two cemeteries creating an ideal Daily Exercise Route. I've been visiting regularly ever since, though these days my visits are no longer daily. Over the past couple of years, I have also been employed to carry out wildlife surveys (now completed) of all of the council managed cemeteries in Edinburgh.
I can definitely say that cemeteries can be excellent places for wildlife! Of course, different cemeteries are managed differently, those that are still in use for regular burials need to be kept very tidy, but can still offer useful habitats for birds and insects. Cemeteries attached to historically interesting churches are usually also kept fairly tidy. Cemeteries that are no longer used for burials and that are not attached to churches are, in Edinburgh at least, allowed to grow a bit wilder.
North Merchiston Cemetery is one of those cemeteries. My main impetus for visiting the cemetery this lunchtime was to pick litter. There have been a number of big concerts at the Murrayfield Stadium in Edinburgh over the past few weeks. This is great, it's good to have big concerts in our city and the stadium is an excellent venue. Not so great, however, is the litter left over afterwards. Specifically, plastic feathers from feather boas that were sold at the events.
The cemetery isn't exactly on the doorstep of the stadium, but I counted at least 20 such feathers around the cemetery as I collected these and other bits of rubbish.
Edinburgh Council is carrying out deep cleans of the area around the stadium after the events, but this doesn't prevent lightweight rubbish such as these feathers from littering the city (they are literally everywhere!). The council doesn't have the power to ban the sale of plastic feather boas, but also doesn't seem inclined to actually make the point that that would be a good idea, as it would stop the problem at source.
Apart from that, I had a lovely time in the cemetery, enjoying the sunshine.
One of the laburnum trees in the cemetery, in full bloom
A dog rose in full bloom
A Whitebeam tree in full bloom
A close up of the Whitebeam flowers
Buttercups and Daisies
As I've mentioned in previous posts, there were only a few insects around. A couple of Orange Tip butterflies, a Speckled Wood Butterfly and a few Bumblebees of different species. Edinburgh Council does not use herbicides or pesticides in this cemetery (except for very focussed applications of herbicide to remove invasive Japanese Knotweed).
If you're interested in the wildlife in burial grounds, you may be interested in Churches Count on Nature 2023 which starts tomorrow, Saturday 3 May and is part of Love Your Burial Ground Week, focusing on the brilliant wildlife to be found in churchyards and chapel yards.
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Visit a Cemetery for 30 Days Wild
Pick Litter for 30 Days Wild
I had a lovely lunchtime walk around North Merchiston Cemetery yesterday. The sun was shining brightly and the dandelions were looking beautiful. The council manages this cemetery to benefit wildlife and this means allowing dandelions and other wild flowers to thrive in amongst areas of longer grass.
Dandelions are very important as a source of food for pollinating insects, but this year although there are dandelions everywhere (it looks like more people are starting to learn about how important they are) there are very few insects on them - normally you would expect to see several small flower beetles in a dandelion, but mostly this year so far, the flowers are empty
The cherry tree is in full bloom
It was lovely to see the first Speckled Wood Butterfly of the year, hopefully the first of many as this species is a common visitor to the cemetery these days
There is a small area of Wild Garlic in the cemetery, which will soon be in bloom
One of my favourite trees at this time of year is the pussy willow. There's a lovely example of this in North Merchiston Cemetery and it's looking wonderful at the moment. I took some photos during my lunchtime walk today.
The daisies and dandelions are starting to flower now too
