The Cemetery in November 2009
Wet and windy describes a lot of the month. In fact it’s likely to be the wettest November on record. It was also exceptionally warm compared to the seasonal average, the temperature returning to close to the seasonal norm around the end of the month. A report in the Guardian said that the west of the county has been frost free in November for the first time on record. The report came out around 29th and would have been true if the frost of the night of the 30th November – 1st December started after midnight!
Also by the end of the month, most deciduous trees were bare, apart from English Lowland (Pedunculate) Oak which still retains its deep brown leaves. Birches, Limes, Sycamores and Ashes are all bare – Beeches still have some deep russet leaves – the Beech is interesting as a Beech hedge, unlike the tree, can retain most of its leaves all winter The Larch, Britain’s only deciduous conifer has also lost its needles.
One tree species, so common as to be often disregarded is the Hawthorn (strictly Common Hawthorn Crataegus monogyna). It is one of two native species, the other being the less common Midland Hawthorn Crataegus laevigata. Hawthorns have a variety of common names – Whitethorn, Quickset, Mayflower and, less commonly, Red Haw. Besides these two native species, there are about a hundred other species globally and some have been imported to Britain over the years. I have certainly identified one of these exotics at the northern edge of the Cemetery – the Russian Hawthorn Crataegus ambigua. There are several specimens on the Eastern side of what I think (less certainly) is Various-leaved Hawthorn Crataegus heterophylla. This give us three species in (or on the boundary of) the Cemetery as Midland Hawthorn does seem to be absent.
Tawny Owls are calling at night now. The famous “twit twoo” (or more accurately “keewick hooo”) is usually two birds – the first is the normally female contact call and the second the male territorial call. So we’re often hearing a breeding pair. Sometimes it may be a dispute between two males. Tawny Owls can be seen during the day. They’re hard to spot but are normally seen roosting at the junction where a branch joins a tree trunk.
I presume Song Thrushes singing is temperature dependent as my National Phenology Recording form asks for data on them singing all winter. I will be probably be able to enter this record as already I have heard three singing in or near the Cemetery this month.
To regular readers, it’s no surprise that I leave early for work. I walk along the footpath just outside the north-eastern edge of the Cemetery and at this time of year I need a torch. Around the middle of the month the beam illuminated a Fox a little way ahead of me. I think it was a dog Fox as it was quite big. He looked at me for a moment and slipped noiselessly off through the fence and into the Cemetery.
The Cemetery in October 2009
The early part of the month saw some ground frosts but the last week was unseasonably warm with temperatures being several degrees above the seasonal norm. For those of you able to remember last year, you will recall that we had sub-zero temperatures and snow on the ground! In general this October remained drier than usual.
This month the trees developed (in most cases) their autumn tints.
The colour palette in the Cemetery trees is extensive. Ash and Elder are yellowish-green, Elm, Silver Birch and Lime pale yellow, Sycamore and Hornbeam bright yellow, Beech russet-orange, Cherries and exotic Maples crimson and Spindle (admittedly just outside the Cemetery) pink. The reasons for these colours are still debated. The chemicals concerned are carotenoids and anthocyanins and are presumed to have roles in preventing leaf damage as photosynthesis declines and chlorophyll breaks down. In addition, it is possible that the bright colours advertise to insect pests that the tree is producing protective toxins.
This month the leaves start falling too. Significant fall has been coming off Beech, Hawthorn, Silver Birch, Sycamore, Elm, Ash and Turkey Oak – our native Pedunculate Oak (English Oak Quercus robur) is scarcely showing leaf tinting yet, let alone leaf fall. In some years this species keeps its leaves, brown with tannins, all winter. Horse Chestnuts are largely bare, but this at least as much to do with the leaf-miner moth activities reported in July as the onset of autumn.
To go with the leaf tints we have berries – Red for hips, haws and Guelder Rose. Most Hollies likewise, although there are a few trees where the Holly berries are bright yellow. Firethorn (Pyracantha) also has a range of berry colours from yellow through orange to red. Snowberry (obviously?) is white. Spindle has curious three-lobed pink berries. There are some curious visual effects on some Yews – the “berries” (see September for the reason for “ “) are like ruby dots on the dark green foliage, augmented by the scarlet berries of Black Bryony hanging on the pale brown vestiges of the leaves and stems. This looks for all the world like an attempt at dressing a Christmas tree with natural decorations.
By the end of the month the Ivy had few flowers left and the berries were set. We’ll probably be into the New Year before the berries turn their usual glossy black. They will provide, along with many berries mentioned above, a rich source of food for birds and smaller mammals over the winter period.
Blackbirds have been doing their usual trick of turning over fallen leaves in their hunt for food. Herbivorous and omnivorous birds have been doing quite well in the autumn glut of fruit. Specialist carnivores like the Song Thrush rather less well as the dry conditions make worms, snails and slugs harder to find. This brings me to another bit of folklore – I have heard it said that after a hot dry summer, the retreat of worms, slugs and snails to deeper soil levels is a presage of a hard winter to come. This is not so. They retreat to find damper, more amenable conditions – they are not clairvoyant!
Returning to birds, the commoner species over the month have been Blackbird, Wood Pigeon, Green Woodpecker, Wren, mixed flocks of Tits, Carrion Crow, Jackdaw and Magpie. And now another diversion. The names of most of our crows are onomatopoeic renditions of their calls (CROW, ROOK, JACKdaw, and CHOUGH). These name have come down to us from Old English little altered so we would know the bird referred to if the name was spoken by an Anglo-Saxon.
Finally, a bit about Ladybirds. There has been some press coverage about (a) the spread of the Harlequin Ladybird (an introduced exotic species) and (b) a population explosion of our native 7-spot Ladybird. In the Cemetery, many Harlequins were seen in the spring, easily out-numbering our 7-spot. However, from late summer and extending to now, the position has been reversed and the number of 7-spot is much greater.
The Cemetery in September 2009
In September we reach astronomical autumn with the equinox on 21st – 22nd. It was a very dry month with rainfall significantly less than the September norm. I believe Bedford had only 15 per cent of the average amount.
The Ivy is pretty much in full bloom and attracting many bees wasps and hoverflies, although far fewer Red Admirals than I expected. They seem to have been quite scarce this year, which is slightly surprising as I find they tend to do well in good Painted Lady years. Yew “berries” are now ripe and shining like rubies in the sun. I use the quotation marks because they are not actually berries but substantially evolved pine cones. They are mawkishly sweet to eat and unlike the rest of the tree, not poisonous (well, I’ve eaten some and I’m still here).
A flowering plant that I missed previously is the Broad-leaved Everlasting Pea. This plant, very similar to the Sweet Pea favoured in cottage gardens can be found growing near the Wyatt tombs. It can spread very easily and is a bit of a problem in the adjacent Hill Rise Local Nature Reserve, where control measures have had to taken to prevent it dominating the meadow area. Other plants typical of late summer and early autumn are on flower too. Many daisy-like plants are flowering – that large and difficult-to-identify group of Hawkbits, Hawkweeds and Hawksbeards - often genus Hieracium from the Greek for “falcon” hence Hawk-. This is another group where hybrids occur easily and where some are considered aggregates of microspecies. Dwarf or Stemless Thistle is in flower on the conserved grassland in the north-east of the Cemetery. Another late flower is blooming at the far north-western corner – the Common Toadflax. This is a very pretty flower like a small pale yellow Snapdragon
…talking of which, this grassland was cut in the week preceding September 5th. I consider this about a month too soon, whilst accepting that one annual cut is needed to suppress the more aggressive plant species and to prevent succession.
I had a new experience one morning (1st September) when leaving for work. My route takes me out of our back gate and along the path running outside the northern edge of the Cemetery. It was just getting light (sunrise at about 6.15) and I was aware of several bats zooming over the Cemetery fence. They were very small so probably our commonest species – the Pipistrelle. Not having a bat detector I couldn’t be certain of the species nor, if they were Pipistrelles whether they were the Soprano Pipistrelle Pipistrellus pygmaeus or the Common Pipistrelle Pipistrellus pipistrellus. The former has an echolocation call with a frequency of 55 kHz rather than 45 kHz for the latter. What made this experience new was the time – I am used to seeing bats in the evening, but not in the morning.
Tawny Owls have been more vocal at night this month, a sign of autumn arriving. I saw an immature Green Woodpecker with more than green – obviously this year’s brood.
Finally, mea culpa! I reported on an injured tree in July and stated that it was a Beech – it’s actually a Turkey Oak. And in the same month I claimed that Black Bryony berries turn black after being scarlet – they don’t – they stay scarlet. My apologies.
The Cemetery in August 2009
August is a transitional month. It starts in high summer and ends by opening the gate to autumn. You might expect the weather to be variable and so it proved. Our garden rain gauge (our garden is 20m from the Cemetery) showed 44mm on 6th August. On the 19th we recorded a temperature of 28 degrees and on 23rd 27 degrees. The month closed windy and cool.
Hawthorns are now covered with ripe berries. Did you know “haw” derives from Old English indicating a hedge or field enclosed thereby? Some claim that “hay” has the same root. Elderberries are now ripe too, as are the fruit of Bittersweet or Woody Nightshade (often misidentified as Deadly Nightshade). The rather exotic spathes of Lords and Ladies have been replaced by spikes of red berries. Most trees are bearing fruit of one sort or another: the Horse Chestnuts are ripening (await small boys with sticks trying to bring down conkers!), Snowberry has its white globes. Turkey Oak and Beech are both dropping large amounts of immature acorns and nuts respectively.
The first Ivy flowers are out, but we will have to wait a while until enough open to scent the air with honey.
I have one new butterfly species to report: Brown Argus. This is a member of the Blue family (Lycaenidae) without any blue. The emergent generation of Painted Ladies became common – it was easy to see thirty or so on a single visit. Large Whites and Common Blues were also common. Male and female Holly Blues have been patrolling the Ivy as the females seek Ivy flower buds to lay their eggs on and males seek mating opportunities. Holly is used as the foodplant in spring. There was also sudden jump in the numbers of Silver-Y moths. This species often arrives with Painted Ladies, so I was not surprised to see them.
Other insects provide a few points of interest: I saw the first Southern Hawker dragonfly of the year; discovered a wasp’s nest in one the soil heaps; noted a large increase in the number of 7-spot Ladybirds – until this month I’d seen more Harlequin Ladybirds. And finally, one of my favourite insects – an Oak Bush-cricket. This is rather like a long-legged grasshopper and is a beautiful pale green.
The Cemetery in July 2009
In July we reach high summer. The early part of the month continued the very warm weather of late June, although the rest of the month was decidedly mixed with above average rainfall.
A number of plants came into flower for the first time this year (or at least dramatically increased their flowering). Included were Lesser Knapweed, Black Horehound, Wild Carrot, Great Willowherb, Nettle-leaved Bellflower, Common Cat’s-ear, Buddleia and Restharrow. This last is a pretty pink-flowered legume which has its name due to its tough stems and roots – enough to arrest a plough or harrow, certainly in the days of working horses.
I had hoped that the Horse Chestnuts would escape the depredations of the leaf-mining moth Cameraria ohridella this year but it proved to be just late and the trees are looking in a sorry state with the leaves being wrinkled and discoloured like an early and not very attractive autumn.
Blackberry and Blackthorn have ripe fruit and I think Hawthorn will not be far behind. Blackberry (Bramble) is a taxonomic nightmare – there are several hundred “microspecies” which form the aggregate Rubus fruticosus Black Bryony berries are now bright scarlet and will turn glossy black over the next few weeks.
Painted Lady butterfly numbers have started to increase as the brood arising from the spring migration starts to emerge. New this month are Gatekeeper and Small Skipper butterflies. The area of long grass has seen good numbers of Six-spot Burnet moths, an attractive little insect with very dark green iridescent wings dotted with crimson spots.
I can report one new dragonfly species for this year – the Brown Hawker.
One final item of note: just inside the west wall there is a Beech that at some time has sustained an injury or infection and leaks sap from a few places on the trunk. Small groups of wasps have been clustered around these points drinking the fermenting sap. A little later on I expect to see Red Admirals doing the same thing – these butterflies are the drunkards of the butterfly world, drinking sap as here or the fermenting juices from fallen pears or plums, often to the point that they can no longer fly properly.
The Cemetery in June 2009
In June summer is really here. The most noteworthy weather event was the very hot period at the end although there were also periods of heavy rain. The flora reaches a summer peak. In the wildlife area in the northeast of the Cemetery the orchids made a fine show – I counted over thirty Pyramidal Orchids, three Common-spotted and four Bee Orchids. Other plants coming into flower this month were Figwort, Feverfew, Common Mallow and Snowberry. This last is a rather invasive shrub but the flowers are popular with bees and hoverflies. Bramble is flowering well and three species of climber – Black Bryony, White Bryony and Wild Clematis (Old Man’s Beard) are out, with the inevitable Convolvulus.
I was able to add more butterfly species to the 2009 list: Meadow Brown and Large Skipper. I said last month that I would explain the colour of blue butterflies, which have in fact no blue pigment. So here goes:
Some physical structures can produce colours by interference. One common example is the way oil films on water produce colours in the reflected light. Other structures, such as very regular closely spaced rulings on a light-transmitting or reflective substrate can by cancelling all but a narrow range of light wavelengths, reflect just one colour. This is used in a device called a diffraction grating. Some butterflies (Blues and Coppers in Britain) achieve this effect through the arrangement of scales on their wings. A simple test can be done to prove this. If you put a drop of xylene on a blue butterfly wing the blue disappears as the xylene, with the same refractive index as the wing material, fills in the gaps between the scales. As the xylene evaporates, the blue returns! Any problems with this heavily physics-oriented explanation, please email me (ba@hep.ucl.ac.uk)!
One day-flying moth has been abundant in the long grass areas – the Burnet Companion. This is a small quite attractive moth but a nuisance to butterfly recorders as you’re never quite sure what you’ve seen until you get a closer view!
There were increases in Dragon- and Damselfly sightings – I saw Large Red and Azure Damselflies and Brown Hawker Dragonfly. The Brown Hawker is an impressive insect often seen flying to and fro over open areas of territory. The name comes from the wing colour, which is a translucent tawny brown.
In April I reported that I had been asked to survey Garlic Mustard and Lady’s Smock in flower. The flowering season for this plant is now over and I will shortly be sending in my data. The results are dominated by Garlic Mustard as there were few Lady’s Smock plants. The first sighting of Garlic Mustard in flower was April 5th and the last on June 28th. The peak seems (by interpolation) to have been around May 11th with 104 plants being seen in flower. I’ll report on this later in the year when the national data have been collated and analysed. It will be interesting to see if there is any clear phenological connection between this plant and the life cycle of the Orange Tip butterfly, which uses it as the caterpillar foodplant.
Although it’s only the end of June, the first signposts for autumn have been seen. One of the most obvious is the forming of conkers on the Horse Chestnut trees. Break one open and there will be a small white “protoconker” inside.
The Cemetery in May 2009
In May spring merged imperceptibly into summer. There are now so many plant species in flower that no more than a flavour can be given without providing a long and rather boring list. Lesser Celandines are now replaced by two species of Buttercup. The Violets are in seed but a similar colour can be seen in the ground flora as Ground Ivy spreads. There are four species of Crane’s-bill (wild geranium) in flower. A number of the pea family is in flower: Lesser Trefoil, Common Vetch, Red and White Clovers and Bird’s-foot Trefoil (the food plant of the Common Blue butterfly caterpillar). The Mint/Deadnettle family is quite well represented with Red and White Deadnettles, Bugle, a few early Self-heal and Ground Ivy (which the Anglo-Saxons called ale-hoof and used for flavouring beer). The meadow areas are studded with large numbers of Ox-eye Daisy, perhaps the archetypal flower of early summer. Or is it Dog Rose in the hedges?
Around the middle of the month I heard and then saw a family of Long-tailed Tits. The young must have fledged and flown fairly recently as the parents were still feeding them. Young Chaffinches are being fed too – the young make a curious rocking motion from side-to-side to stimulate the feeding instinct in the parents. On the 29th (at 4.30 am!) we were woken by a Cuckoo calling from close by in the Cemetery.
There has been quite a lot of discussion in the media about the problems of our bees. Most of the focus has been on the Honey Bee but all our bees face some degree of threat. It is nice, therefore, to report on instances of good bee numbers. The Early Bumblebee (the scientific name Bombus pratorum is more frequently used) has been seen on Clover on most days. They are especially fond of Cotoneaster, but this occurs rarely in the Cemetery although is found in abundance in the surrounding domestic gardens, attracting large numbers of these bees.
A long dry spell in mid to late May was broken with heavy rain on the night of 25th – 26th May: our garden rain gauge, just 20 metres from the northern edge of the Cemetery, showed 6mm. The following morning paths in the Cemetery were heavily populated with snails, largely Garden Snails but with a fair number of Brown-lipped Snails Cepaea nemoralis. My personal name for them is “Humbug Snail” due to their creamy-brown ground colour with thin dark stripes. I suspect they do not taste of sugar and peppermint.
I had the pleasure of conducting my spring wildlife walk round the Cemetery on the 24th. We saw the second Common Blue of the 2009 season and I asked the group a question: “The male Common Blue is a vivid pale blue on the upper wings – yet there is no blue pigment – how is this done?” One person had the right answer. Do you know? Answer next month!
Continuing the theme of butterflies, all the species seen last month were also seen this – and we can add the Common Blue to the list. As I write this, word arrives from the web that a potentially huge migration of Painted Ladies is underway. So far I have seen four in the Cemetery and about ten in the surrounding area. Regular recorders have been asked to estimate the speed and direction of flight. For those of you with a knowledge of physics that means velocity, doesn’t it? So far, all those I have seen in uninterrupted flight were moving north or north-east at about 10 metres per second. The remainder paused to take nectar from flowers.
Dragonflies are starting to appear. Neighbouring gardens with ponds are seeing good numbers of Azure and Large Red Damselflies. I saw one Broad-bodied Chaser female in the Cemetery this month.
The Cemetery in April 2009
In April spring really got into its stride, aided by the weather which has been significantly warmer and sunnier than the 1991 – 2000 average Below average rainfall doesn’t seem to have had any deleterious effects on the wildlife. Cow Parsley flowered, giving the familiar white foamy effect along many hedges. Jack-by-the-Hedge (or Garlic Mustard) flowered too, offering a food plant for the caterpillars of both the Orange Tip and Green-veined White butterflies. The female Orange Tip (she has no orange tips on the forewings – this is confined to the male) generally lays no more than one egg per plant as the caterpillars are cannibalistic. The eggs are easy to spot as they are orange, about 1.5 – 2mm long and laid near the flower head. Later in the season, the caterpillar mimics the seed pod of the plant and is quite well concealed. See below for details of a new project.
Cowslip and Primrose came into flower, together with hybrids of the two (some forms being called False Oxlip). It was my observation of these species many years ago that led me to conclude that the concept of “species” was much less fixed than taxonomists were prepared to admit as these plant hybrids can cross and back cross with each other and their parent stock.
Hawthorn or May came into flower too. Most people will be familiar with the phrase “Ne’er cast a clout ‘til May be out”. There is no agreement as to what this means. Is May the month or the tree? Is clout referring to clothing or the soil turned by the plough?
Bluebells added colour in many places, both the English form with slender stem and flowers depending from one side, and the Spanish form, most more robust with flowers all round the stem. And some hybrids here too!
All the trees are now showing leaves and Horse Chestnuts have the impressive candelabra of white flowers – the pink variety is usually a little later. The Elms have finished flowering and are covered with pale green seed cases.
Blackbirds and Blue Tits have been feeding young (unfledged I presume as I haven’t seen young birds). A pair of Magpies and a Carrion Crow were squabbling over a nest site – an incident remarkably similar to one described to me by our Treasurer Margaret a year or so back.
The largely good weather has brought out butterflies with Large, Small and Green-veined Whites, Orange Tips, Holly Blues, Peacocks, Red Admirals and Speckled Woods putting in an appearance this month. Towards the end of the month I was contacted by Butterfly Conservation to ask if I was interested in joining a new project. Some of you know that I do a transect walk weekly through the Cemetery to record butterfly numbers (a transect is a fixed route with defined recording rules). The new project involves recording numbers of the Orange Tip larval host plants in flower (Lady’s Smock and Garlic Mustard) in each section week by week. This should produce phenological (biological response to seasonal change) data showing whether climate change is affecting the normal synchrony between the availability of the flowering host plants and the readiness of the female butterfly to lay eggs.
The Cemetery in March 2009
March ran true to form – wind, rain, sun, hail, frost and warm days! March is also the month when things start to happen very quickly, especially with the plant life. Horse Chestnut “sticky buds” opened and the leaves began unfurling, Elms were flowering and the Hawthorn buds burst. Wild Primroses, Ground Ivy, Red Deadnettle, Wood Anemone and Dog’s Mercury all came into flower. Cow Parsley put on about 20cm of growth; Lords-and-Ladies pushed up their leaves, some with spathes ready to unroll; Jack-by-the- Hedge showed its new leaves and a few Cowslips were in bud.
The first butterflies appeared on sunny days about halfway through the month – Green-veined White, Brimstone, Red Admiral and Comma. The last three spend the winter as adults – not strictly hibernating but in a condition called diapause. The Green-veined White emerges from its pupa in the spring.
We’re still a little way off the classic “Dawn Chorus” period but standing quietly in the Cemetery still produces quite a concert! I did this around the middle of the month for about five minutes and was treated to the rapid complex songs of Wren, Dunnock and Robin; the more liquid contributions of Blackbird and Song Thrush: the rather monotonous tones of Chiff-chaff and Great Tit; the cooing of Wood Pigeons (like a foretaste of summer); the raucous calls of Carrion Crows and the laughing “yaffle” of the Green Woodpecker. I’d be glad to be able to say I heard the Mistle Thrush too but that was on a different day. Apropos Song Thrushes – they are sometimes mistaken for Nightingales but a Song Thrush always repeats the notes and phrases of its song, often up to four or five times.
March was also the month when I heard the unearthly mating calls of the Foxes – quite unnerving in the middle of the night!
If you have any interesting wildlife records from the Cemetery, I’d be happy to receive them.
Send me (Brain Anderson) an email. ba@hep.ucl.ac.uk
The Cemetery in February 2009
This month saw the heaviest and longest-lasting snowfall for nearly a
couple of decades. In some parts of the Cemetery it was over 200mm deep.
This severely restricted the early spring observations I normally make for
the National Phenology Network. Now the snow has gone (except where people
have made a giant snowball near the gatehouse) and observations can start
in earnest.
Snowdrops are flowering quite widely and I note that the Cemetery has
several varieties in different locations. Also in flower are Winter
Heliotrope and a few early Daffodils.
Blackcaps and Chiff-chaffs are about (warblers that always used to fly
south until we started having mild winters) and the Song Thrushes and
Tawny Owls are getting more vocal.
The Cemetery in January 2009
This entry is a bit of a cheat. It’s being written in September after the Friends Committee decided it would be nice to have a record of the whole year. The following is taken from my journal notes.
All deciduous trees are bare but Hazel bushes at the Cemetery edge will have open catkins soon. Birds are easily spotted and on New Year’s Day I saw Wood Pigeon, Green Woodpecker, Blue Tit, Carrion Crow, Grey Heron, Chaffinch, Blackbird and Robin.
On 17th I saw a magnificent rainbow from the open area near the highest point of the Cemetery. It was a double rainbow with another arc lying outside the primary bow. The primary bow was (as usual) red-orange-yellow-green-blue-indigo-violet as you count inwards. The secondary bow, caused by double reflection inside the raindrops, has the colour order reversed.
