There’s something about graveyards that makes me stare at my feet. It’s partly respect for other visitors but also a morbid fascination with what I’m walking across. I imagine layers of gothic decay: bones, beetles and things that go bump.
So when I’m invited under the gatehouse of Bristol’s Arnos Vale Cemetery by a grave digger turned ecologist, my expectations are set to spooky. The screech of an electric drill sounds as the groundskeeper unscrews a protective wooden panel and I descend into the pitch-black basement. The tunnel here was once used by Victorian undertakers to travel between the entrance buildings without disturbing mourners: now it’s home to rare mammals. At the bottom of the stone steps I duck my head under an archway and immediately spot what we’re looking for: a black diamond shape suspended from the ceiling.
Under the briefest sweep of torchlight it looks like a leaf or plum but no trees can live in this underworld. It is a lesser horseshoe bat, named for the distinctively shaped nose it uses in echolocation. I can’t see this feature today, though, because all four of the bats we find are tightly shrouded in the cloak of their wings. We’re only making a short visit, as the bats are very particular about their living conditions and every breath we exhale will gradually alter the humidity of their home. With the count quickly completed, I follow Dan Flew from the Avon Bat Group back up to the light.
On the surface, the cemetery is bathed in gentle autumn sun that washes away any gloomy thoughts. Dan and his colleagues are very satisfied by the roost numbers under the gatehouse, but disappointed not to find any in the old crematorium. Their scheduled check of the boxes scattered through the woodland for other bat species also finds only vacant homes but it is early days for fussy bat tenants: the boxes have only been here for three years. Hopefully it won’t be long before more move in, both above and below ground. Looking at it from the right perspective, this cemetery is the ideal location for urban wildlife; at least the neighbours are quiet.
