Graveyard

Yew berries.

Every  autumn, when there is a sunny day with a deep blue sky, I head to the churchyard to see what's about. As I get older, I feel a growing affinity for this time of year, but not in any negative way. After the fading brilliance of the summer, I look forward to the crisp, slanting light and glowing colours.

Despite the sun and the blue sky, today is a very windy day, due to the remains of two Caribbean hurricanes that are passing through the UK, bringing a fall of American birds to our west coast and our most far-flung Atlantic islands. There is a cinematic blizzard of golden and brown leaves between the headstones that could denote the passage of time but, because of the strong wind, my chances of catching any small birds out in the open are limited.

A headstone spattered with fallen berries.

I work my way along the south wall, keeping my back to the sun so that the scene is well illuminated, but all I can detect is a small disturbance in a yew tree that has a holly bush growing up through it. A pair of great tits are snatching bright red arils; the scarlet berries of yew trees that are edible, but extremely sticky.

Blue tits hunt spiders in a cedar nearby and a pair of extremely shy blackbirds cluck in the undergrowth. They explode skywards as I approach and I wonder if these are the first winter visitors to the church-yard. After all, unlike their wilder Scandinavian brethren, English blackbirds are not generally bothered by my presence. Two song thrushes flit from a hawthorn bush: definitely song thrushes, redwings are darker in hue and it's too soon for them to be here.

Shaggy parasols, ignored in the churchyard
but very much edible. 

At the back of my mind, I'm hoping for a few early migrants from the east, but the wind has been in the wrong direction. A few goldcrests and yellow-browed warblers have reached the Norfolk Coast, but the main inward migration hasn't started here yet.

In fact, the last swallows and martins are still saying their farewells and the neighbouring wetlands along the Great Ouse valley are still rich in insects such as dragonflies that attract the last few hobby-falcons of the season.

In my graveyard, I watch the last of the summer's butterflies sunning themselves on an ancient sun-bathed wall. A fresh-looking red admiral and a faded and battered speckled wood are attracted to the tendrils of flowering ivy that cling to a memorial stone. They need to keep sharp because predatory hornets are patrolling the sunny glades. Under a faded buddleia, I find a pile of butterfly wings that the hornets have discarded. 

All the conkers on the village green are gone,
but children shun the graveyard. 

It's a rich habitat, this graveyard, with sunny walls, evergreens, deciduous trees and lawns. Ladybirds cling to tombstones. squirrels gather nuts and acorns while robins hunt for worms on freshly dug graves.

In autumn, it's a place ripe with metaphors for death and decay but that's not what I see. It's an ancient man-made woodland habitat that holds it own special mix of residents and attracts a good range of migrants, and that's ignoring the church itself with its hibernating bats.

Etched letters in stone

The yews were planted long ago to provide longbows for our wars with the French. The cedars, pines  and redwoods are Victorian imports from the new world, while the other trees such as holly, alder and elder were brought in more recently by birds. Horse chestnuts and ash trees were planted quite recently, simply to provide diversity, but the oaks were probably planted by squirrels or jays, maybe a hundred year ago.

The great thing about churchyards is that they give you perspective; a long term view. It's not just all those graves with their headstones dating back through the centuries, even though they are so interesting in themselves. Have you ever noticed how few and how localised the names on the stones were only a hundred years ago?

Gargoyle. What animal is this?
Can we re-introduce them?

Graveyards measure time for us. As more bodies are buried, the ground actually rises, so that the church may appear to sink, and, because the stones are dated, we can measure the rate of growth in lichens or the rate of decay in the inscriptions due to air pollution. The graves record wars, plagues and waves of immigration, the infant mortality rate and our own growing longevity.

But all  of this twaddle can be set aside if you like.

The fact remains that graveyards are just great places to see wildlife and to grab a bit of peace, especially in an urban setting.  Visit yours and tell me what you see.


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