By Helen Bovill
Considering it’s the first month of winter, December has not been particularly cold, containing plenty of mild, wet days. But it was nowhere near as wet as November, and towards the end of the month the weather was dry but dull.
Fungi and Lichen
I saw plenty of fungi this month, including some King Alfred’s Cakes in a part of the cemetery I’d never seen them before. They’re not abundant here, so I’m always pleased to see these distinctive looking, hard cased fungi. This is because they could be host to the Scarce Fungus Weevil in the spring – I was thrilled to find some of these unusual weevils in 2022 and that remains the only time I’ve ever seen them, anywhere.
Then I found some Smoky Bracket, a species I hadn’t seen previously in the cemetery. I also found some Inkcaps, although I’m not sure which species. I also saw various smaller mushrooms, some jelly fungus and some Coral Spot.
There are plenty of fallen branches all over the cemetery, and many have lichen on them. I found a particularly nice example of what looks like a Powdered Speckled Shield lichen – the first time I’d seen one in the cemetery. But this could have been because the branch was too high up to see it originally; when it fell its treasures were revealed for all to see! This is shown in the photo at the start of this report. I think the plant growing next to it is Wood Bristle-Moss.
King Alfred's Cakes
Smoky Bracket
Inkcaps
Plants
Although I didn’t expect to see many of the cemetery’s plants in flower this month, I was still able to find a few flowers on over a dozen different species on a single day just before Christmas, including a Lesser Celandine which I was very surprised to see. This is over a week earlier than the first one I saw last year, and even that was still early, as the flowers don’t normally start to open until January. In addition to the ones shown below, I also saw a couple of flowers on the Forsythia near the cemetery gates, and Bramble and Musk Mallow flowers on that same day.
Top 3 from left to right -
Hogweed, Dandelion, Hazel catkins. The long ones are the male flowers; the female ones are tiny and red, and are just visible near the top of the male flowers.
Middle 4 from left to right -
Buttercups, Wood Avens, Lesser Celandine, Feverfew.
Bottom 3 from left to right -
Smooth Sow-thistle, Tansy, Hedge Mustard.
In fact when I looked closer a few days after Christmas I found even more plants in flower – Groundsel, Cow Parsley, Common Chickweed, Ragwort and, most surprisingly, Blackthorn. Its flowers don’t usually open until well into January. Some Daffodil buds are starting to develop, and Snowdrop buds are becoming visible all over the cemetery now. A few of the snowdrops in the Quaker Burial Ground have been flowering since mid-December.
Common Snowdrop in the Quaker Burial Ground
Blackthorn
Musk Mallow
Insects
I didn’t see many insects this month – just a few flies of varying sizes, woodlice and ladybirds. Some ladybirds were still active although most have now hibernated, often in the nooks and crannies of the gravestones.
7-Spot Ladybird
Birds
I saw most of our usual species of small birds this month, and I caught a brief glimpse of a Goldcrest and a Pied Wagtail. I particularly enjoyed watching small flocks of Long-tailed Tits high up in the trees. I saw all of our larger birds – Wood Pigeon, Stock Dove, Magpie and Carrion Crow. There were lots of Blackbirds and Robins around, feeding on berries.
Carrion Crow (above)
Long-tailed Tit (above)
Blackbird (female) feeding on Pyracantha berries
Robin feeding on the same Pyracantha bushes a few days later
Nest Box Survey
Early in December Bill, Dennis and I did the annual checking and cleaning out of the bird boxes. December seems to be the ideal month for it – too late for birds to still be on the nest, but too early for them to have started building new ones.
We should now have a total of 50 boxes but we were only able to locate and check 47 of them. Of those 47, 27 had nests or other nesting materials in them, giving an occupancy rate of 57.45%, which is slightly down on last year’s result of 60%. I’ve counted both Owl boxes as having been used although not by owls – we found an egg laid by a member of the dove family in one of the boxes.
For the purpose of these surveys, “used”, “usage” and “occupancy” all mean we found either a full nest or a good quantity of nest materials inside the box.
The cemetery occupies a long, regular sized area of land and it divides up nicely into two parts – the western end and the eastern end. There are now 25 boxes in the western end and 22 boxes in the eastern end. When I checked the occupancy rates again, but for each end separately, the results were very interesting. 17 of those 25 boxes had been used in the western end, giving an occupancy rate of 68%. But only 10 of the 22 boxes in the eastern end had been used, giving an occupancy rate of 45.45%. This is the second year I’ve looked at each end of the cemetery separately, and it seems the western end of the cemetery is still the most attractive to our bird population.
Nest found in one of the boxes that had been used every year since we started the annual survey
Further analysis
This is the 6th year we’ve been checking the nest boxes. Several of the boxes have been used every year and several have been used most years. But some of them have never been used. I wondered what made some boxes more attractive to birds than others. Was it their position in the cemetery, for example distance from footpaths or traffic noise?
The above map shows the position of the 47 boxes we checked this year. And the most favoured boxes are spread out all over the cemetery, many of them close to footpaths. So the traffic noise on Spring Bank West doesn’t seem to have put the birds off. We already knew that nest box usage is slightly lower in the eastern end of the cemetery, and the map shows that usage diminishing the nearer we get to the properties on Princes Avenue.
So could the size of the entrance hole be a deciding factor? The 40 original boxes, erected in 2019, had a variety of round entrance holes sized from 25mm to 32 mm in diameter, with a few boxes having half their frontages open. The boxes were designed to cater for birds of several sizes, from Coal Tits to Robins.
50% of those boxes had the smallest, 25 mm openings. But slightly less than half of them were used every year or all but one year; the rest were only used a couple of years or not at all. As only Coal Tits and Blue Tits can fit through these openings, maybe there weren’t enough birds to occupy all of the boxes? Wrens would also fit this box size but they don’t always use nest boxes.
Lower numbers of boxes with 28, 30 and 32mm openings were erected but of those sizes, the 32 mm ones proved the most popular, with all of them being used every year or all but one year. These would suit Great Tits. Robins sometimes use half open fronted boxes, but none of those boxes have ever been used.
Of course this is not a scientific study; the results are difficult to analyse as there are so many different factors to take into account. And some of our birds – Chaffinches, Goldfinches and Dunnocks for example – don’t use nest boxes at all, but there are still plenty of those birds living and breeding successfully in the cemetery.
We’ve just replaced some of the older, damaged nest boxes with new, sturdier ones that should last for many years to come. It will be interesting to see which ones the birds choose to use next year.
Conclusion
This month’s relatively mild weather, together with that of the previous couple of months, seems to have had the effect of bringing the plants into flower earlier than usual. But we say goodbye to 2025 with some much colder weather - New Year’s Eve started with a light frost and bright sunshine. Perfect weather to wrap up warm and enjoy a stroll around our favourite cemetery!
Daffodil buds and frost on the morning of New Year's Eve
And finally .......
The last Squirrel of the month for 2025. See you in 2026!
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