Hitchin Wildlife

 Hitchin Cemetery Apr-May 2024 The cemetery is a lovely place to visit at any time of the year, but in late spring it really looks attractive, with the fresh greens of Silver Birches, Lime trees and meadow grass making a lovely contrast with the spring flowers. The best plant in the cemetery in my view is Meadow Saxifrage and it is thriving like never before, with around a thousand plants. Meadow Saxifrage is a good indicator of old grassland and demonstrates that the cemetery has special conditions which have been lost from much of the countryside elsewhere. A special mention must be made of the mowing teams who take care to strim around the Meadow Saxifrage and I asked Steve Grainger, an expert local photographer, to take some photos and this is one of his. It is important to remember that the meadow area contains not just showy plants but many unassuming species such as Ribwort Plantain (below left) and Sorrel, and it is not just flowers which provide food for invertebrates; the roo