Arnos Vale cemetery provided the following update to Wildlife News.
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Whilst the conservation management priority is to provide access to visitors of graves and the listed monuments, the cemetery is also being managed as a Site of Nature Conservation Interest (SNCI).
The landscape management plan focuses on conserving the existing grassland and woodland habitats and improving their quality to benefit wildlife. The woodland is being managed through selective thinning; to improve the canopy structure and encourage biodiversity.
Areas of scrub and bramble are being managed, not through total clearance, but through rotational cutting every three years. Scrub will be prevented from encroaching further onto the grassland.
The majority of the grassland areas is cut annually, towards the end of the summer, when plants have set their seeds. These practices are put in place to favour the amazing diversity of wildlife which inhabits the cemetery.
The nationally scarce plant ivy broomrape grows here and Arnos Vale Cemetery also has many nationally rare insects. During the 1970’s and 1980’s, mis-management and serious neglect of the site by the previous owner created problems requiring close management.
Birds that visit include woodpeckers, thrushes, finches, fire crest, woodcock, tawny owls, buzzard and sparrowhawks. Reptiles include slow worms, toads and grass snakes. Mammals that live on site include bats (pipistrelle, lesser horseshoe bat and soprano pipistrelle), foxes, badgers, roe deer and squirrels.
We have a significant number of wildflowers growing on site including primrose, burnet saxifrage, field scabious and ladies bedstraw.