Cemetery Wildlife – August 2021

August was a quiet month, weather-wise, with no extremes of heat, cold or rain but with plenty of dull days.  Pretty much a typical summer month in these parts! Summer Wildlife

Birds

It seems to have been a good year for the cemetery’s birds, with plenty of young ones around.  All the cemetery’s Tit species have bred successfully – Long-tailed, Blue, Great and Coal (pictured above).  There are some young Blackbirds around, and I saw a young Song Thrush too – its tail feathers will appear later but it is still able to fly without them.

Juvenile Song Thrush

The best, albeit brief, sighting this month was a pair of Bullfinches but I didn’t manage to get a photograph of either of them.  The young Goldfinches of last month’s report are doing well and starting to feed independently.

There are plenty of Chaffinches around and these are easy to spot, especially the males with their pinkish-brown feathers.  The females are much duller shades of brown and can sometimes be mistaken for Sparrows.  But male and female Chaffinches have white feathers in their wings which make them easily identifiable in flight.

Male Chaffinch

Female Chaffinch

I find it fascinating that the males and females of some bird species have distinctly different plumage – for example, Chaffinches and Bullfinches.  This is known as sexual dimorphism. Their differences are quite obvious to see.  However, the differences between male and female Goldfinches are much more subtle to the point of them being almost identical.  I would not be able to say with confidence what sex the Goldfinches of last month’s report were!

Butterflies and other insects

It has been a very quiet month for butterflies.  One of my neighbours has a huge Buddleia in her garden which is normally teeming with butterflies in August.  I have only seen a couple on it so far and this lack of activity is reflected in the cemetery.  I caught brief glimpses of a few White butterflies (I was unable to tell which species) and I saw a Holly Blue flying high around some Ivy.

The most common butterfly species in the cemetery is the Speckled Wood and on sunny days there are usually a few around.  They flutter around each other in the air and then spend time basking in the sun.  This one was in the Quaker Burial Ground.

Speckled Wood

There are Ladybirds and Hoverflies around too but not in great numbers.

Marmalade Hoverfly on Wild Carrot

Flowers and other plants

The Cow Parsley and Wild Garlic has died back completely to the point where it’s hard to see where it once grew.  Any plants now in flower that look a bit like Cow Parsley will most likely either be Hogweed, which is quite a tall plant, or the lower-growing Wild Carrot.

I struggled to find anything in flower to show you this month.  The cemetery is still very green though!  I did manage to find a few Buttercups, Herb Robert, Nipplewort, Great Willowherb and Feverfew.  The berries are now starting to appear on the Snowberry bush but it is still in flower.

Nipplewort

 

Great Willowherb

 

Feverfew

 

Snowberry

My main aim is to write about the wild flowers and plants in the cemetery.  This section of the newsletter is called Cemetery Wildlife after all!  But many of the trees and shrubs growing in the cemetery are there because of what was planted in the past.  They have now become naturalised so I will not draw any distinctions between these and the wild flowers.  Regardless of whether or not they are native, they still have value to the cemetery wildlife.

The volunteers will only be planting native species in the cemetery, such as a recently planted English Oak.  Any wild flowers to be set will be native species that will blend in with their surroundings and complement what is already growing there.

The situation in the Quaker Burial Ground is slightly different because this area is owned by the Quakers under a long lease.  They have requested that the Friends of Hull General Cemetery manage this area on their behalf.  It is still in a conservation area where the same considerations apply with regard to the felling of trees and so on.  But we have been able to set some new shrubs and plants that are not necessarily native species.  However, we will also be planting some native species whenever we can.

Mushrooms

I have not seen any fresh large specimens this month, but there are still plenty of tiny mushrooms to be seen growing on the ground.  Given that the footpaths are covered in wood chippings this is not unexpected!

Mammals

I have no new Fox or Hedgehog sightings to report, but there are always some Grey Squirrels around and these can be seen almost every day.  There will always be someone who doesn’t like them of course.  But I never tire of watching them chasing each other up and around the trees, or simply posing on the ground.  And what child doesn’t love seeing them during family walks through our favourite cemetery?

The Grey Squirrel can vary in colour quite a lot – this one has a brilliant white chest and mainly grey/brown colouring.  But some Squirrels can have more gingery hairs and very pale ginger chests.

Eastern Grey squirrel

Conclusion

A rather uneventful month for the cemetery wildlife, with the dull and cooler days perhaps accounting for the low numbers of butterflies on the wing.  The grass verge on Spring Bank West still doesn’t contain many flowers and this will have affected butterfly numbers too.  But the birds are around in good numbers.  Berries are now starting to appear on the bushes so they will have plenty of food to keep them going as we head into September. Dare I say that it is starting to feel slightly Autumnal already?

Summer Wildlife

Summer Wildlife: July

What a month of contrasts July has been, going from torrential downpours earlier in the month to a heatwave in the middle of it!

It’s a relief to start this month’s report with some good news – Hull City Council has apologised for the cutting of the grass verge alongside the cemetery in early June, stating it had been done by their operator in error.

They do appreciate the value of such Summer wildlife habitats and as a result they are going to designate the grass verge as a ‘’no mow’’ area.  This means they will only cut the grass and the plants at the back of it at the end of Summer or early in Autumn.  They are also going to set some wildflower seeds in the bare area, so next year we should see some additional plants growing there as well as the usual ones.

The grass has started to grow back now, and luckily there are plenty of flowers on the Brambles at the back of the verge – an important source of nectar for Bees and other pollinating insects.

Butterflies and insects

Another quiet month for butterflies, with just a few Speckled Woods and Large Whites around.  I also saw a Small Tortoiseshell, but the best sighting this month was a Red Admiral, which kept me company while I was working in the Quaker Burial Ground.

Red Admiral 2

Whenever you see a butterfly fluttering nearby it’s always worth holding your arm out to see if it lands on you – this is one of the species that will sometimes do this.  It remained on my hand for half an hour, presumably feeding on the minerals on my skin.  (Polite description of sweat, an unlimited food source for the butterfly that hot day).

This gave the other volunteers an opportunity to observe a butterfly up close, and to appreciate the need to plant and maintain shrubs and flowers that attract and sustain them.

There were lots of Ladybirds of varying sizes and colours around.  In many cases it is not easy to identify which species they are because some species have colour and spot number variations within that species.

There are around a dozen native UK species, three of which are yellow.  I thought I’d found one of those, but this one is a Harlequin.

Harlequin Ladybird

Birds

There are still plenty of fledglings or juveniles around.  But sometimes it is difficult to tell which are the young ones and which are the adults because at this time of the year the adults start the process of replacing their feathers.

This can sometimes give them a rather scruffy look compared with the smoother look of the juveniles.

Blue tits

It seems to have been a good year for Blue Tits and Great Tits, with many of the earlier fledglings no longer being reliant on their parents for food.

There are young Blackbirds, Robins and Chaffinches around and I was lucky to have the pleasure of observing a family of five newly-fledged Goldfinches being fed by both their parents.

Goldfinches

Juvenile goldfinches

Juvenile Goldfinches are easy to identify because of the yellow feathers in their wings.

The black, white and red feathers on their faces come later.  Both sexes are similar.

Goldfinch

A regular visitor to the cemetery showed me some footage he’d taken on his mobile phone of a female Mallard walking through the cemetery with some ducklings following behind her! I hope they made it safely to the nearest large body of water, which is in Pearson Park.

Mallards have been known to nest in some unusual places including balconies on high-rise flats.  They can then sometimes need human assistance to get them to safety.

Another bird I haven’t seen in the cemetery for a while is the Collared Dove, so I was pleased to see one this month.

collared dove

Flowers and other plants

The natural dying-off of the Cow Parsley and Hogweed has continued, and some Wild Carrot has now appeared.

When fully open it looks a bit like a shorter version of Cow Parsley, but it has some feathery leaves underneath the flower head.  The buds look a bit like Love-in-a-Mist buds.

Wild carrot

Not many plants are in flower at the moment.  There are the usual Buttercups, Daisies and Clover to see. There is now some Enchanter’s Nightshade, Broad-leaved Willow herb and Hedge Woundwort in flower.

Hedge Woundwort

Prior to the Stop Notice the volunteers had planted some species approved by the Council as being appropriate for the site in various places around the Cemetery.  The Foxgloves were doing well and had started to flower but some have been pulled up and others had their flower stems broken.  Why anyone would do this is beyond me.

The Stop Notice meant that the volunteers were not allowed to set any plants in the area we were hoping would become a butterfly meadow.

So rather than see them go to waste, we set the plants in two areas near the path behind Thoresby Street school.  These included Sunflowers, Cornflowers and other mixed wildflowers.  These spare areas of unused land are in a rather shady location but the Cornflowers are now flowering.

Cornflower and hoverfly

Mushrooms

It is sad to have to report that another beautiful specimen of a Dryad’s Saddle has been destroyed by someone.  At first large parts of it had been sliced off. A few days later the rest had been removed leaving no trace of it.  Vandalism?  Theft?  Either way this is very disheartening and disappointing, and there are no more large specimens left in the Cemetery now.

There are still a few smaller mushrooms around including these tiny Fairy Inkcaps.

fairy Inkcaps

Mammals

A regular visitor to the cemetery reported seeing a Hedgehog in there one evening. I know  one has also been seen in some of the adjoining gardens along Welbeck Street.  It would be nice to think that this increasingly scarce little animal might find a safe place to live and raise a family in the Cemetery.

One evening around sunset a group of volunteers met up to take part in a national Bat survey.  While we were waiting for the bats to emerge, we caught a brief glimpse of a Fox and two cubs in the distance.  We had two bat detecting devices with us, and we heard and saw a few Pipistrelles. The best sightings were just outside the boundary in Western Cemetery.

Conclusion

It has been a successful month for the birds of the Cemetery, with plenty of youngsters around the site.  But in Summer wildlife can be hard to spot; there are probably many other young birds and animals I didn’t manage to see.  The damage to plants and Fungi was disheartening, but the Butterflies continue to bring joy.

And after the heavy rains and high temperatures of the first half of the month, it ended with some much cooler and cloudy weather.

Let’s see what August has in store for all that call Hull General Cemetery home! Wonderful Wildlife

Wonderful Wildlife

Wonderful Wildlife in May

This is the month when a big transformation takes place.  We don’t have to do anything though – just stroll around and enjoy the wonderful wildlife in May!

May started with plenty of sunny weather although it was colder than usual for this time of the year.  Towards the end of the month there was plenty of steady and much-needed rain and that transformation is almost complete.  April’s small green shoots are well on the way to becoming fully-fledged leaves. Wonderful Wildlife

Birds

The big news is that the Tawny Owls have raised two babies (known as Owlets, pictured above)!  I only saw them both together on three consecutive days at the beginning of the month and they proved very popular with visitors to the cemetery.  The last day I saw them one was perched at the entrance to the nest box and the other was sitting on the roof.  I saw them stretching their well-developed wings ready for fledging and I hope they have now done this successfully.

There is at least one family of recently-fledged Long-tailed Tits in the cemetery as I recently saw an empty nest in the centre of some Brambles. I caught up with this family just outside the boundary in Western Cemetery and counted at least ten of them in a Cherry tree.

Long-Tailed Tits

Butterflies and other insects

Four species of white butterfly were seen in the cemetery with Large White, Small White, Green-veined White and Orange-tip flying in decent numbers whenever the sun was out.  This was the dominant butterfly colour in May.  Several Speckled Wood and one or two Peacock, Brimstone and Holly Blue were also seen.

Orange-Tip female

                                                

Ladybirds have now emerged from hibernation and are plentiful and varied.  The UK actually has a dozen or so native species with the 7-Spot being the most common.  You should therefore never assume a strange-looking Ladybird is a non-native Harlequin!

                                             

 

Flowers

The Bluebells were in full bloom growing in beautiful carpets throughout the cemetery. Many of them are the cultivated Spanish variety, having quite upright stems and conical bell-shaped flowers.  They have blue pollen and no scent.

Bluebells in the Cemetery

Native Bluebells on the other hand have curved, drooping stems and narrower bell-shaped flowers with rolled back tips.  They are also scented.  Only Bluebells that have ALL these characteristics are true native ones.  Those with only some are hybrids of the native and Spanish varieties.  The ones in the Orange-tip photo are most probably native ones although it wasn’t possible to smell them to confirm this!

The Wild Garlic (also known as Ramsons) is now in full flower in several places and you can catch its distinctive smell as you walk by.  These along with many other plants seen this Spring have flowered slightly later than usual.

                      Wild Garlic field

                                Close up of Ransom flowerhead

Another white flower that can now be seen inside the cemetery and on the Spring Bank West verge is Cow Parsley.  Its lush growth lines the footpaths and covers the areas further back in the centre.  It provides a valuable source of nectar for butterflies and many other small insects.  Most visitors to the cemetery in May, even after an absence of only a week or so, will notice the transformation straight away.  This is completely natural and does not make the area ‘’overgrown’’.  The sight lasts for a few weeks and then the plants start to die back, leaving seed heads that provide more food for the birds.

Cow Parsley

A similar-looking plant is the native Hogweed.  It is sturdier and slightly taller than Cow Parsley and has large flat leaves.  It also has large clusters of white flowers although the buds are dark pink on the outside.

Hogweed

There are still a few Celandines in flower.  Quite remarkable considering the first flowers appeared back in January!  Buttercups are now in flower and there is Hawks-beard and Common Vetch on the Spring Bank West verge.

Several plants have tiny flowers and many of these tend to get overlooked or simply dismissed as weeds. But once you know their names they stop being weeds and become wildflowers.  Some of those smaller ones that can be seen at the moment are Hedge Mustard (not to be confused with Garlic Mustard, which I talked about last month),  Shepherds-purse and Herb-Robert.

                                                  Herb Robert

Mushrooms

A new sub-heading to reflect some excellent specimens that were found this month!  Mushrooms and fungi can be seen at any time of the year on fallen logs and on living trees.

Dryad's Saddle fungi

Mushrooms can be quite difficult to identify and can vary quite a lot between specimens. Some, like this Glistening Inkcap, deliquesce very quickly – these two photos were taken just 24 hours apart.

                                            Fungi

 

May has been a month of changeable weather and rapid transformation.  The wonderful wildlife that lives in the cemetery has continued to thrive and new lives are being nurtured in peace and security all over the site.  I hope to talk about these in the next newsletter.