Our Living Churchyard in August
I start by thanking the Vicar and the PCC for making possible the erection of a much more comprehensive sign giving information about the churchyard. This new sign shows more of what is to be found. Nevertheless, the variety of both flowers and insects continues to grow each year: the only way to keep really up to date is to go into the meadow and keep your eyes wide open.
As I write, the cold weather continues and it’s easy to dismiss a day by saying there’s nothing to be seen but a few Meadow Brown butterflies braving the chilly temperatures. But the flowers are loving the damp, cool weather. After a gap if 4 years, there is a lovely yellow froth of Ladies’ Bedstraw in front of Richard Page’s tomb - why it hasn’t appeared in the years in between, or why it has suddenly appeared again now, I can’t say. But stand downwind of it and be delighted by its lovely scent.
A new visitor to the area this year is the Large Skipper. This is one of the so-called Golden Skippers, because of their colour and because they have a distinctive flight pattern, skipping from flower-to-flower sipping nectar. This one is using its long proboscis to drink from Common Knapweed. Encouragingly, two or three new plants of this have appeared this year.
The butterfly in my picture is a make. It has a black ‘sex brand’ on the wing, from which it ejects pheromones (chemical lures) to attract females.
Many different yellow flowers are out now. One of these, Lesser Hawkbit, hosts an emerald-green Swollen-thighed Beetle. This is also a male, shown by the prominent swellings on the thighs of its hind legs.
Near it is a Crab Spider, a small spider with a dumpy body and eight eyes. These spiders don’t make a web, but lie in wait for their prey and seize it with their long front legs.
