Comely Bank Cemetery

 I'm continuing with the second wildlife surveys of selected cemeteries in Edinburgh. I've chosen what I consider to be the richest in wildlife, and am carrying out Spring surveys. I'm hoping that I might be given more days to eventually be able to survey all the cemeteries for a second time. Today I visited Comely Bank cemetery. 

This is a relatively large cemetery with lots of mature trees. In autumn the grass is covered in a selection of fungi, at the moment there's a lot of field wood rush looking at it's best

Although the ladybirds are waking up for the Spring, some are still resting on the gravestones, including this eyed ladybird - click on the photo to get a better view of this very pretty ladybird

The weather was quite warm and sunny for most of the time I was in the cemetery. So I was pleased to see a couple of queen buff tailed bumblebees patrolling the grass, looking for nest sites and a tree bumblebee climbing a tree looking for a likely nest site. I also saw a couple of hoverflies, but none of these pollinating insects stopped for long enough for me to take photos! 

Birds were singing loudly, including wrens, goldcrests, robins, coal tits and a mistle thrush. 

You can see photos of my previous visit to Comely Bank cemetery in this post. 

Comely Bank Cemetery

 I was able to have a wee wander round Comely Bank Cemetery first thing this morning. 

It's a cemetery that is still in regular use for burials, so is kept very neat and tidy. There are plenty of trees though and a wildflower patch

which is currently dominated by Greater Bindweed, which is very popular with various species of bees and hoverflies, though today I couldn't catch any insects on film 

The Lime (Linden) trees in the cemetery are still just in bloom

while the Black Poplar is busily shedding white fluff everywhere 

This white fluff is made up of the female catkins

The Black Poplar has lovely leaves

though many of the leaves on this tree seem to be infected with insects that have made galls and are eating the leaves

for Nature Notes.

Comely Bank Cemetery

 

Early this morning I had a lovely walk round Comely Bank cemetery. I headed straight for the wildflower patch, hoping that the Wild Carrot would be in full bloom and I wasn't disappointed! At this time of year, this beautiful umbellifer is still in flower, with the distinctive red flowers at the centre of the inflorescence, which you can see below, you may want to click on the photo to enlarge it

At the same time, some of the flowers have already set seed and at this stage, the shape of the inflorescence totally changes

The wildflower patch is also home to Large Bindweed 

and thistles, which are currently seeding 

There are many beautiful trees in the cemetery 

While I was walking round, this Silver Birch Tree below was the centre of activity for a number of birds including Long Tailed Tits, Blue Tits, Chiffchaffs and a Great Spotted Woodpecker. A small group of House Martins were flying overhead.

For Nature Notes.

Comely Bank Cemetery

 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.

Snowdrops in Comely Bank Cemetery

 We enjoyed seeing the snowdrops out in bloom in Edinburgh's Comely Bank Cemetery today. 

Meanwhile the first daffodils are starting to bloom, including these that were recently planted in North Merchiston Cemetery. 

Comely Bank cemetery and National Galleries

 I took a short time out to wander round Edinburgh's Comely bank cemetery yesterday. The light was beautiful

and I was delighted to see my first snowdrops of the year - not yet in full bloom!

Today I went to the Women in Revolt exhibition at The Scottish National Galleries Modern 2 and took some photos to take advantage of the light

It's good to see that the gallery now has an allotment area in its grounds, though it's not clear who does the gardening here (are they growing vegetables for use in their cafes or are community groups doing the gardening?)

The is well worth seeing before it closes on 26 January (and in fact I'm going to see it again tomorrow!).  

I posted more photos of the Gallery building over on my Shapeshifting Green blog, you can see them here.

Two more cemeteries in Edinburgh

 This week, I continued my wildlife survey of Edinburgh's cemeteries by visiting two cemeteries outside the centre of the city. On Monday I visited Morningside cemetery. 

This is a wide open cemetery, with some lovely trees, including some beautiful silver birches, which look particularly fine at the moment 

This is a cemetery that is rich in fungi at this time of the year, including this collared earthstar 

and this, which after a bit of research, I found out is a parrot waxcap - I never realised before that they could be so green!

 In fact Morningside Cemetery has so many waxcaps, like the snowy waxcap and yellow waxcap below - that it woulc almost be considered to be a waxcap grassland. Plantlife (the charity for plants and fungi in the UK) is currently running Waxcap Watch, which encourages people to get involved in recording these amazing fungi.

As in many cemeteries in Edinburgh, ladybirds gather here to hibernate, choosing the gravestones under trees. These orange ladybirds look very cosy

and I couldn't count how many pine and two spot ladybirds had hidden themselves away here 

On Thursday I continued my survey by visiting Comely Bank Cemetery, near the city's Western General Hospital. This cemetery has a good number of mature trees 

and a good variety of  of fungi including these puff balls

and these parrot waxcaps 

There were ladybirds and other invertebrates on many of the gravestones, including this rotund harvestman (that's my own translation of its scientific name Leiobunum rotundum, I'm not sure whether it actually has a common name)

War Graves Week

 War Graves Week (21 – 28 May 2021) organised by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission encourages communities to find out about the World War heritage on their doorstep. Your local cemetery probably contains the final resting places of some of the men and women who fought and died in the two world wars. Certainly both our local cemeteries (that we have discovered to be such wildlife havens since we started walking around them at the beginning of lockdown 2020) contain a number of such graves. 

To mark War Graves Week, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission in Scotland are running small, socially distanced guided tours of Edinburgh's Comely Bank Cemetery. 

 

This is a lovely wooded cemetery that I have often admired from the bus but have never before visited. So today I went along to find out more and enjoyed a fascinating guided tour that took in the sad stories behind some of the many war graves in this site, which sits next to the Craigleith Military Hospital (now the Western General).

If you don't have the chance to visit the cemetery in real life, you can experience it a virtual guided tour here.

Wild Carrot

 Wild Carrot has to be my favourite Umbellifer plant, especially at this time of year, when many of the inflorescences are going to seed. These plants are in Edinburgh's Comely Bank Cemetery 

I love the way that the inflorescence folds up once it's gone to seed 

In the centre of most inflorescences of this plant, there is a red flower, which you can see in the photo below. The red flower is just to the right of the Batman hoverfly (Myathropa florea) which seems to have a particular liking for Wild Carrot.