Hitchin Wildlife

  Hitchin Cemetery Jan-Mar 2025 In 2015 the Countryside Management Service put on a course in Hitchin Cemetery in hedge maintenance with a professional topiarist who had trained in Japan. One aim was to consider the cemetery as a whole and create a unifying theme of curved shapes and one of the techniques studied was that of cloud topiary and below is a rather splendid example, all credit to our leader Veronica's efforts over the past nine years. It was shortly after the course that the Friends of Hitchin Cemetery started life and we look forward to celebrating our tenth anniversary next year.  The Friends group are very pleased with the brand new short guide to the cemetery created by Caroline of the  Countryside Management Service working for  North Herts Council. This leaflet has some details about how to find the cemetery and what can be seen there, and can be downloaded from the council website here: https://www.hertfordshire.gov.uk/doc/env/cms/conservation...

Hitchin Cemetery  October - December 2024 As usual in October, the Ivy along the old cemetery wall was full of flowers which attracted lots of Ivy Bees (below left), plus Honey and Bumble Bees and Hoverflies (below right) and the Ivy fruit will provide food for birds throughout the winter. When the weather got chillier the trunks of trees were a good place to find insects basking on sunny days, such as this Southern Oak Bush Cricket with its extremely long antennae (actually spotted on a Beech tree), and Batman Hoverfly (can you make out the dark bat's wing design?).   The cemetery has numerous Silver Birch trees, which look fantastic all year round and support numerous types of wildlife, some of which I'll share with you later on, but one of the old trees blew over in storm Darragh. It was cleared away very efficiently within 24hours, as shown below. Silver Birches are not long-lived trees with typical lifespan of 100 - 150 years: if this one was planted when the cemetery was...

  Hitchin Cemetery August-September 2024 As ever, the cemetery is a haven for wildlife and a few creatures not seen before were spotted, such as this Canary-shouldered Thorn moth: difficult to see as it was well camouflaged on a fallen Birch leaf, but a real beauty! A Cream-streaked Ladybird however was easier to spot in amongst some Larch needles. Gatekeeper butterflies were the most numerous butterflies during August and we inadvertently disturbed a nest of Bumblebees (probably Common Carder Bumblebees), nesting in a hole at the bottom of a gravestone, but I suspect they would soon make good the slight damage caused.    Compost news: possibly more information than you want to know... There has been a concerted effort to make our existing compost area just as we want it, with the two big containers being divided to make four smaller heaps so we can rotate and turn compost in an effective manner. The work started by removing the existing contents and we found a two mice u...

 Hitchin Cemetery June-July 2024 The fourth and final cemetery tour led by The Friends of Hitchin Cemetery as part of Hitchin Festival was on the last Sunday of July and there have been nearly 100 visitors on tours this year. The tours start in the chapel to give people a chance to see inside this building, which is not often used, although this year for the first time the chapel was used as a voting station in the general election. Apologies to the many people who have been unable to book on these very popular tours: we will give the disappointed people prior notice of next year's tours. The summer months are the best time to see the many flowers and insects which find a home in the cemetery. There have been some really very unusual wildlife sightings (as you will see lower down) which is remarkable given that it is only eight years since a changed management scheme allowed some grassland areas of the cemetery to grow long. It is also eight years since The Friends of Hitchin Cemet...