The Churchyards – Nature Notes by Nick Cox.
As was mentioned in the last edition of The Oracle, we have embarked upon managing our two churchyards, on both sides of the road now, with a greater emphasis on encouraging the wildlife. We wish to care for and respect pathways to and around the graves, and enhance the historic and meditative nature of the place, but we are deliberately leaving more areas now for the natural vegetation, wildflowers and grasses to grow on. If carefully managed, they can then provide food and habitat at certain times of the year for many more creatures and insects.
To that end, a small group of committed volunteers are helping with our endeavours – thank you again to everyone who has been involved. There is regular ongoing work by individuals, as time and weather permit, but the group is also trying to meet together on the last Saturday morning of each month, at least in the growing season, with tools in hand and mowers at the ready. We have even dared to refer to ourselves as “The Lawn Rangers!” So, if anyone else is free to join us at our monthly working party mornings, they would be most welcome.
The Suffolk Wildlife Trust has been guiding our approach and is continuing to provide helpful advice and information. In June a survey was conducted of the wildflowers in the un-mown areas, and an impressive 80+ species were identified. With our new mowing regime in place, it was a real joy to finally find beautiful bee orchids, allowed to flower for the first time.
Seed has also been harvested now from some of the areas we left to flower before they were cut back. Hopefully, we can now re-establish a more diverse range of species in other areas of the site.
We hope that as we further develop and preserve our delightful churchyards as wildlife sanctuaries, we will in time encourage and identify more and more flora and fauna. It would be great to record and share our discoveries and our ongoing work with the wider community, and to generate more interest in and more support for these valuable wildlife havens. So, do please look out for future photos and notes, both here in The Oracle, and elsewhere.