Chiffchaff CC BY_NC_SA Peter Hassett, Draycote Water 3 April 2019

Trip Report – St.Laud’s Churchyard, Sherington 30 July 2019

Shield bug on Dogwood  ©Julian Lambley, Sherington 30 July 2019

Shield bug on Dogwood ©Julian Lambley, Sherington 30 July 2019

Sherington now has an active and growing Biodiversity Group who are doing all they can to make the village more attractive to wildlife. The churchyard of St.Laud’s Church is managed with a light touch – large areas of the churchyard are left unmown to allow grasses and wildflowers to flourish and some areas have been enhanced with sown and planted wildflowers. ‘Bug hotels’ have been installed on the walls and hedgehogs are encouraged throughout the village.

On the evening that we visited the omens were not good. After a wet day, the skies were leaden and it was drizzling at 6.45pm. Nevertheless, twenty members turned up. Parking at the village hall, we made the short walk along Church End towards the church. As luck would have it, we had just reached the church when there was an almighty downpour. Luckily, we had shelter in the church porch which was quite cosy with 20 people in it! A good place, this, for the Harvestman enthusiast. However, the rain soon passed and we had a very enjoyable hour.

Speckled Bush Cricket by Peter Hassett

Speckled Bush Cricket by Peter Hassett

Martin Kincaid led the group from the church into the adjacent fields. One of these former arable fields has now been turned over to nature by the owner who has planted a nectar rich garden which is full of butterflies, bees and hoverflies. On the previous day Martin and Carol Allen had counted 13 species of butterfly here for the Big Butterfly Count. In the damp conditions, we did not see any butterflies flying about but before long people started to find roosting butterflies on grass stems – at first just Meadow Browns and Ringlets, and later a wider range including Common Blue, Brown Argus and Small Copper. Everywhere, Meadow Grasshoppers were leaping about and we managed to identify six species of Orthoptera. Probably most impressive were a number of adult Speckled Bush-crickets who were settled on the leaves of a Buddleia. Julie Lane found these and before long several of us had them crawling over our hands.

This garden is privately owned but signs dotted around make it clear that anyone is welcome to wander through and enjoy it – provided they clean up after their dogs. In a second clearing there was a large compost heap and around here impressive stands of Purple Loosestrife and Water Figwort.

Returning to the churchyard, we concentrated on plants. Roy Maycock had listed plants here in the 1980s as part of his county-wide churchyard survey. Mary Sarre, assisted by others, amassed quite a list this evening and will be interesting to compare this with Roy’s 30+ year old list.

Among the birds heard and seen were Swifts, Swallows and House Martins – which were foraging over the village – Greenfinch, Goldfinch, Chiffchaff and Green Woodpecker.

A most enjoyable walk despite less than summery conditions and one worth repeating. We will provide Sherington Biodiversity Group with our records and observations.

Text by Martin Kincaid.

Photo at top of page is a Chiffchaff by Peter Hassett