THERE is something slightly eerie going on at Southend Cemetery where creatures have taken over the trees and headstones.

But this isn’t an invasion of creepy-crawlies from another world, or the plot of a cheesy horror movie, but tree-loving caterpillars making themselves at home.

Millions of bird cherry tree ermine moths have moved in at the Sutton Road cemetery, leaving trees and gravestones covered in their silky webs, much to the disquiet of some visitors.

Sheila Weeks, from Ramsden Heath, found herself doing battle with a swarm of moths as she went to tend her sister’s grave. She said: “The trees are all covered with what looks like white net. There are millions of them. We had to clear them off the headstone. We cleared them off our feet and car before we left, but still took about 20 of them home.

“It’s very eerie. The trees are shrouded in lacy silk from top to bottom and they are all over the grass and graves. They are quite a sight.”

Nova Bickmore, 69, of Borrowdale Road, Benfleet, couldn’t believe the sight when she visited her father’s grave.

She said: “There were thousand upon thousand of caterpillars and a silk web all over the trees, which had no leaves left. Some of the caterpillars were hanging down from the trees and others were all over the floor. It was really a ghostly scene.”

However, Paul Sinclair, Southend Council,’s park officer, said at present, it had no plans to remove the moths.

He said: “We became aware of this problem last week. These creatures are affecting about 30 trees. We believe they are bird-cherry tree ermine moths, as they are only on these trees, but we have taken samples of larvae and are growing them on to see what emerges.

“Last year, it affected fewer trees. They stripped the leaves off the trees but the trees all seemed to survive.

“It is a natural phenomenon, so we don’t want to go spraying chemicals if we don’t need to. We will monitor the situation.”

Roger Payne, natural history curator at Southend Museum, said: “The stuff is silk the moths spin to protect themselves.

“The larvae are more or less fully grown and nearly at the pupal stage. They will emerge as tiny black-and-white moths in July.

“They have good years and bad years and this is obviously a good one for them.

“The fact they are on the ground means there are so many of them they are probably starving and have fallen from the trees in search of food.”