Life among the dead

Hi folks,

As many here will know, graveyards are very often good places to locate slow worms and sometimes other herps. I've searched hundreds of sites now and have a high success rate in locating them - perhaps 70-80% of the time lady luck smiles at me. This is no surprise when you think about it; these sites are relatively undisturbed with mostly native plant species and have usually never been 'improved' by fertilisers or compost. The odd burial notwithstanding, they remain untouched by plough or spade for centuries. There's usually a slow worm-friendly compost heap, rough, unstrimmed areas on old grave plots that escape ecclesiastical ecocide, great big monumental slabs of stone on the ground for refuge/hibernation and boundaries formed by dry stone walls or hedges. Quite often broken bits of sun-absorbing stone or fallen roof slates lie in the grass for reptile thermoregulation too.
Country village churchyards are usually better than 'better' kept city ones, but even in those I can sometimes strike gold - or rather, bronze!
So far, in churchyards, I've found Common Frog, Common Toad, Smooth Newt, Great Crested Newt, Adder, Grass Snake, Common Lizard and, most frequently by far, Slow worm. All the 'regular' species except Palmate Newt. Plus a wealth of native wildflowers/trees including orchids, small mammals, badger setts (quite frequently) and various fungi.
Graveyards are often noted for their wealth of lichens.

By the way, I should point out that i don't go near recent graves that are tended!

A few pics of slow worm graveyards and some of my finds then. Enjoy!

A tightly-mown town cemetery in Wiltshire:



Still found Anguis tho'





So far, the most wildlife-friendly churchyards I've seen have been in west Wales and, less commonly, Devon. Light management (if any!), thick tussocks of grass and abundant wildflower species. Stunning!







But these boneyards also yielded slow worms on the aforementioned 'wilder' plots, around the boundaries or in the compost heap:





Note compost heap with grass clippings aplenty:





Some more finds:





With Germander Speedwell and Bush Vetch:











A beautifully marked male:








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Lastly, slow worm in situ:



Cheers

Lovely pix Ben. Sadly the churchyard I am still surveying is unlikely to have much wildlife. 

some lovely looking animals there ben. 

Guess i could have put this in the 'Method and Management' forum or 'Herp a Day' thread, but anyway, this is my kind of churchyard!
Very pleasing!











Despite it's seeming injury (caused by what?), this slow worm - found under a fallen stone - made off ok.



Well done Somerset council eh folks?

In a quiet corner of another churchyard last week, i spotted this group (more or less) in the open:

How forward thinking of that council! Delightful! Thanks for the pics and info Ben. I notice Devon is not on your list as a great spot for this type of thing!