Hatley's churches

Insects in St Denis' churchyard

Report by John O'Sullivan

While cutting, strimming, raking and carting around St Denis on 14 August 2011, the participants came across a variety of wildlife.

Above us, a Buzzard (until quite recently, unheard-of in these parts) circled on broad wings and gave its distinctive mewing call.  Plenty of Small White butterflies were enjoying the sunshine and a variety of ladybirds buzzed, or crawled, by.

The purple knapweed flowers at the north end of the churchyard, deliberately left uncut this time, played host to numerous insects, including the attractive, orange and black, Marmalade Hoverfly.

On the walls of the church, three species of cricket climbed out of our way; a sombre brown one was the Dark Bush-cricket, a bright green one probably the Oak Bush-cricket, and a Roesel’s Bush-cricket, a relative newcomer to Britain, showed off the distinctive lime-green horseshoe-shaped mark on its side.

Special spider

Story and photo by John O'Sullivan

Under St Denis’ Church something deadly lurks.  Well, deadly if you are an insect or a slug.  This is the Cave Spider (Meta bourneti to specialists), which is quite harmless to other locals, including ourselves.  In fact, we have been able to help it – and the tiny cellar of St Denis, the former village church in East Hatley, is just to its liking.

Our spiders were introduced to their man-made ‘cave’ in 2006.  Rob Mungovan, the District Council’s Ecology Officer, needed to find a good home for a population discovered in an old air raid shelter near Papworth Hospital that was being demolished for development.  Beneath St Denis’, which is set in its own Local Nature Reserve, looked suitable, and so it has proved, with the introduced population thriving and keeping up their numbers under Rob’s watchful eye.

Despite a leg-span of 5 cm, the adult spiders don’t move round much. They stay in the dark and await their prey.  When well-fed, the adult female lays her many eggs in a round white ball of silk that hangs from the wall or roof of the cellar, looking like a miniature ping-pong ball.  The young spiders hatch into a world full of threats – and nationally this is an uncommon species.

So next time you pass through the churchyard, give our special spider a thought, and reflect that Hatley is doing its bit to help.

And if you'd like to see the spider in greater detail, just click on the picture...

There is more about St Denis on the Wikipedia website.