Churchyards can be places where we walk or enjoy wildlife, often without realising how important they are for the wildlife that relies on them. Many churchyards are the remnants of ancient meadows used for hay or pastures, in some cases before the church was built. Today they can be one of the few remaining places of land which are ‘unimproved’ (not cleared or cultivated).
At Norfolk Wildlife Trust we work in collaboration with the Diocese of Norwich to provide advice to help churches manage their churchyards with wildlife in mind; sensitively and in relation to the main requirements of the church.
We also involve local communities in wildlife conservation. Our recent
County Wildlife Action project enabled us to recruit, train and support volunteers interested in recording wild species and habitats at their local churchyard. Recording local wild species and habitats is crucial to understanding more about the wildlife in our county and developing strategies to help it flourish.
This year as partners in Caring for God’s Acre’s ‘Beautiful Burial Grounds’ project, we are not only continuing to support our volunteer surveyors, we are also working with schools and families to encourage more people to visit churchyards, learn about them and ensure they are cared for into the future. Each year, Norfolk Wildlife Trust will deliver three school sessions and a family event in two churchyards.
Brooke Primary School joined us for a range of conservation activities at St Peter’s in Brooke. The pupils looked for wildlife tracks and signs, learned about the different forms of lichens, became plant detectives and searched for minibeasts.
“The class thoroughly enjoyed the activities,” the class teacher said at the end of the session. “There was a great variety of tasks to suit all interests and just the right pace of delivery. This meant that the children were fully engaged and they certainly learnt a lot!”
On the last Saturday of summer term, we organised a dusk event where people had the opportunity to see the moths that live nearby, find out what an owl eats, build a bat box and more.
The next family event will take place at St Nicholas Church, Blakeney on Saturday 29 September, from 11am till 3pm. Everyone is welcome to this day event to find out about the minibeasts found at this time of the year, make an animal home to take away, take part in a quiz and more.
If you cannot make it to the event, why not find your local churchyard and discover its wildlife? When managed with wildlife in mind, churchyards can be wonderful places to see a whole range of wildlife. Not only are they havens for many species such as butterflies, moths, bats, slow worms, lizards, birds and small mammals, they can be havens for us too.