The charity Caring For God’s Acre is keen to celebrate wildlife in our churchyards. Ed Dolphin put together a report on the excellent survey work carried out in the Sid Valley in mid June:
Beautiful Burial Grounds and Count On Nature Week have come together, and volunteers from the Biodiversity Group have been cataloguing the wildflowers in local churchyards.
All the Sid Valleys churchyards were surveyed – although not its cemeteries.
This weekend, another survey is coming to close – the Big Butterfly Count – and that has revealed significant information about key sites in Sidmouth, including the Cemetery.
Once again, Ed Dolphin reports – saying that there was a ‘slow start’ to the survey – and a collapse in butterfly numbers at the Cemetery:
Whether this is a real phenomenon or just misjudging the seasonal peaks and troughs remains to be seen as the summer progresses. The exceptionally wet April may have affected numbers as over-wintering larvae and pupae might have suffered in the waterlogged conditions, especially the species that hibernate underground and at the base of rank grasses.
In the town’s uncut grassland areas such as The Knapp and Knowle there are plenty of Ringlets with their chocolate brown wings fluttering about in a rather chaotic way. This raises the contentious issue of grass cutting.
The decline of butterfly species across the countryside is well documented as farming practice changes introduced to produce more food for humans have reduced the feeding opportunities for many insects. If we want to see butterflies in our towns and gardens then we need to give them all the help we can. No mow May is a good start for flowers and nectar feeding adult insects, but many butterflies need the long grass to be around much longer to complete their life cycles.
The cemetery is an interesting case. Last year two areas of the original cemetery were left uncut and the long grass persisted into late autumn. A fifteen minute butterfly count in the northern area on 20th July recorded 42 butterflies and moths representing 6 species. Half were the long grass feeders Meadow Brown and Gatekeeper performing courtship dances and dipping down to lay eggs.
This year the northern of the two sections has been cut regularly and is kept as short grass. A fifteen minute count in this section on 14th July this year recorded just one butterfly, a Meadow Brown. This is a week earlier but a count on the same day in the still uncut southern section recorded 24 butterflies from 4 species, mainly Ringlets, another rank grass feeder. Counts in the uncut meadow and pasture of the adjacent Knapp site produced similar total numbers to last year. The mowing regime in the cemetery is trying to meet a range of objectives, but the changes have shown clearly that if you want urban butterflies you need to cater for the full life cycle.
There has been further revelation on the SVBG’s social media pages:
Interesting to see the ups and downs, pictures are wonderful as usual. With the 5 sites I have repeated so far this year, the north eastern cemetery, Knapp meadow, Peak Hill, Delderfield Nature Reserve and Knowle parkland, numbers are almost half of last year, 58 instead of 118. Most of the difference is down to the cemetery which dropped from 42 butterflies and moths of 8 species last year to a single Meadow Brown. The drop for the other four is 76 to 57. Still two weeks to go, the overall averages for the Sidmouth area are well down on last year. Last year 144 counts averaged 14.5, so far this year 80 counts have averaged only 8.7 butterflies and moths per count.
The uncut end of the cemetery has a fairly healthy population of meadow browns and gatekeepers but they need the rank grass and it is vital that it is cut and cleared this autumn or even they will be forced out by the encroaching bramble.
Whilst everywhere is lower in butterfly and insect numbers this year, this is exceptionally poor, e.g. compared to the Knapp next door. The conclusion has to be that the almost total lack of butterflies and other insects is as a result of the mismanagement last year and now frequent strimming regime at the Cemetery.
At the end of last year, when the Cherishing Sidmouth Cemeteries was set up, it was clear that the Management Plan for Sidmouth Cemetery isn’t working.
Several seasons on, it’s clear that it still isn’t working.
These photos from CSC working party and steering group member Tess Bisson demonstrate this:
“The strimming, (and lack of raking in winter) and it’s effects: (tidy but devoid of flowers and longer grass and therefore insects).”
“This area of the church yard was not left so long and not raked as the lower area was, and at least has a few more flowering plants.”
…