Category: Wildlife

Graves uncovered by FBEC and Deutsche Bank

We were pleased to welcome yet another Team of volunteers from Deutsche Bank to Brandwood End this week to help with our ongoing project to make every grave in the cemetery accessible. Many of the older graves have been lost for some years under Ivy, Holly or in some cases self set trees. The Friends, assisted by various Corporate groups, have been working all over the cemetery to try and make sure visitors can get to family graves.

The coppice area they were working on and how it looked afterwards, graves revealed

Sometimes this involves removing Ivy or small Holly bushes and other shrubs that have grown out of control. There are lots of self set trees, mainly conifers, growing on or between graves. Many of these have now reached significant height and width and can obscure maybe 6 or 8 graves! If possible we remove lower branches (crown lift) to allow access to graves but occasionally the tree will be removed.

Deutsche Bank have been on site on several occasions this year and we hope to welcome them again in the New Year. Follow this link to see further photos.

Another new visitor to the cemetery

Array4hogs, Hedgehog Rescue, have been working with the Friends again and we are pleased to introduce our latest new resident- Stevie. She is now up to weight and ready to be released again into the big wide world. Our thanks to Sharon for all her work with Hedgehogs locally. Please do try and make your gardens Hedgehog friendly and take care when strimming and having bonfires etc. Most of the arrivals lately have been badly hurt by strimmers.

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Hedgehog population boost.

Our thanks to Array4Hogs as they are working with the Friends to help boost the Hedgehog population in the rewilded areas of the cemetery.

Array4hogs, run by Sharon and her team of volunteers, is a local rescue centre who have had to cope with over 170 rescued Hedgehogs this year. The cemetery offers 53 acres of relatively safe environment in which to release Hedgehogs. They may pop up in your garden if you are within a couple of miles of the cemetery as they can travel several miles at night.

Soon they will be settling down for the Winter but on warmer nights they may still pop out! Thank you to Sharon and Alan for agreeing to use the cemetery as a release site and their time today.

Pollinators and Fungi!

Thank you Lukas Large for such a pleasant and informative couple of hours in Brandwood End. Bits on Pollinators, but a strong breeze made it hard as most Pollinators had gone to ground ! We did spot a few – but with his usual breadth of knowledge Lukas jumped at the chance to highlight the amazing Fungi to be found in the cemetery. There were 16 of us in all and everyone really enjoyed it. Nice to see Park Ranger Jan who added her knowledge.

As usual FBEC members were called in to help with grave searches along the route for visiting members of the public. This area of interest is becoming very busy.

Civilian Garden Hedge Tamed.

Once again we are indebted to the BCC Grounds Maintenance team who have undertaken a major reduction in the height and bulk of our hedge surrounding the Civilian Garden of Remembrance. Not only do we not have the equipment or man power to carry out this task, we don’t have the ability to remove the resulting shrubbery. It was important that this cut back was completed well before birds started nesting, so thank you again Paul’s team !

Spring is on the way!

One day is beautiful and the next is really dismal ! This is a British Winter and we all long for signs of Spring. This week in the cemetery we have had a couple of hints that Spring is on the way.

The Woodpeckers in the cemetery have started hammering out ownership of certain areas ready for the mating season. In Brandwood End we are blessed with both Spotted and Green (ground loving) Woodpeckers.

If you keep your eyes peeled you will also spot some of the hardy Snowdrops the Friends planted !

Working with ‘our scene’ to Brighten Brandwood.

The Friends are pleased to announce that we are working with ourscene.org – who are a social enterprise on a mission to offer a change of scenery for those who need one within our Brandwood neighbourhood.

As part of their Brightening Brandwood  project they are making and distributing planters in the Brandwood area and we will be receiving three in Brandwood End Cemetery.

Regular visitors will have missed the usual lovely display of Geraniums lining the path to the Lodge on the main drive. Unfortunately BCC are no longer funding this display so the Friends have stepped up and with our funding and the assistance of Our Scene we hope to plant this area later next week. Our Chairman, Julia, has been busy preparing the area- not an easy task when the soil is so dry.