The early part of October saw Janet and myself heading off
south to visit her mum in Lancashire for a few days, with pleasantly bright
weather driving south but some pretty horrendous rain, in parts, heading back
north. Janet’s mum had just had her flu
jab and was suffering a little from flu-like
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| Janet and mum |
symptoms so, instead of our usual
evening meal on arrival of fish and chips all-round we nipped into Accrington
and to pick-up a light-weight curry which, even with just one to share, was
more than enough. My pre-breakfast
outings to pick up a paper also took in a short circuit past an ex-mill lodge
returning via a nicely wooded park, listing the birds as I walked. At the end of the week 20 species had been
listed with nothing too unusual. A
harlequin ladybird was also seen as was a long-legged house spider (Tegenaria
domestica) which appears to be a new record for that area. The next day
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| Long-legged house spider |
proved interesting and, after a
nice lunch in a café at Tosside with wonderful views over the famous Pendle
Hill we decided to stretch our legs at Stocks Reservoir. As we walked, out came the notebook and
records were made of galls on oak trees, a fungus on red campion (Puccinia
arenariae) and the growth on alder cones known as alder tongue (Taphrina alni). However, the best was yet to come, and the
path took us to a bird hide were there was little to see but brother John said
there was another hide a little further along the path. Annoyingly, I had left my binoculars behind
but thankfully John had his and as we settled down in the second hide we were entertained
by lots of cormorants either
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| Pendle Hill |
feeding on the water or flying past the hide on
their way to roost. Not sure how I did
it, but I had also left my wee camera behind, so I was missing out on capturing
the cormorants’ fly-past and also on a small flock of goldfinches that landed
in a dead tree. I was even more annoyed
when the finches took off being pursued by a peregrine falcon, undertaking
amazing acrobatic manoeuvres as they tried to avoid being caught. The peregrine returned briefly to the dead
tree but was off again too quickly for us to see if it had caught
anything. As it was getting darker it
was time to go but we estimated that there were about 50 cormorants roosting in
the trees at the end of the reservoir.
On our wedding
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| Cormorants roosting and flying |
anniversary day, it poured down with rain so a perfect
day for a family lunch at the Calf’s Head at Worston but we had planned for
another visit to the reservoir at the end of our last day. Janet made the most of shops in Accrington
and Clitheroe and as we walked I made a note of the lichen Collema auriforme on
one of the Clitheroe bridges. Thankfully
the rain held off and we all met up again at Stocks Reservoir for the last
couple of hours of the afternoon. The
cormorants performed again and with binocs in hand for a change, 48 birds were
counted in the roost. No more peregrines
but a great spotted woodpecker wandered up and down the tree looking for
insects. A gull roost developed at the
other end of the reservoir but they were too far away to identify anything
other than black-headed and herring gulls.
A distant silhouette at the top of a tree turned out to be a buzzard and
a couple of little grebes were diving for their supper. In all, 22 species of birds were recorded as
we sat there, so a perfect end to the day.
October was dominated, one way or another, by fungi
recording and visits to known semi-natural grassland sites to look for the
important waxcaps, spindles and coral fungi.
This was prompted by the destruction of an important field in Carrbridge
by Tulloch Homes as covered last month. Some
of these sites were known as having the potential for the fungi to be present
whilst a couple of others turned up whilst looking for other things. Work linked to the aspen protection project
paid off when project leader John thought he had seen waxcaps when visiting one
of the aspen sites, so this was one to check.
The walk-in produced two species, meadow and scarlet waxcap (Hygrocybe
pratensis and
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| Crimson waxcap (Hygrocybe punicea) |
H. coccinea) but it was actually at the aspen site where the
biggest surprise came, 135 specimens of the crimson waxcap (Hygrocybe punicea)
all around one of the glacial morainic knolls.
Checking one of the hazel sites near the Speyside Way for nuts was also
good for this group of fungi with six species of waxcaps, three clubs and two
spindles, all found within about an hour, so a very productive site. Some of these fungi have wonderful names,
splendid waxcap (Hygrocybe splendidissima),
handsome club (Clavulinopsis laeticolor) and golden spindle (Clavulinopsis
fusiformis). With spindles and clubs
looking similar and some being the same colour, quite a bit of time was spent
looking down the microscope to check the spores to ensure they were correctly
named. However, you always learn as you
go along and no more so than on an outing to check on a planning
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| White fruiting bodies top and the young (left) and mature spore (right) of the pointed club (Clavaria acuta) |
application
site. Car parked, there was then a short
walk along the B-class road to get to the site and, as I walked along, I first
saw some earth tongues (last month’s blog) and then a big population of one of
the white spindles or clubs. Photos
taken, I popped a couple of specimens into a tube for checking at home. Looking down the microscope I saw the spores
that I had been expecting, slightly elliptical and with an ‘oil’ drop
inside. However, I was also seeing
slightly more oval spores which appeared to have ‘spines’ on their
outsides. Thankfully, expert Liz helped
out by informing me that they start off elliptical and smooth but then start to
develop spines as they mature. I was
beginning to think I hadn’t cleaned the microscope lens properly and that I was
seeing spores from more than one fungus!
This fungus turned out to the pointed club (Clavaria acuta), one that I
had seen previously.
The general appearance of the waxcaps is the starting point
for arriving at a name with the most obvious being the colour. Is the cap dry or viscid (wet) particularly
if it hasn’t been raining. Is the stem
dry or viscid? Some have caps that look
a little ‘hairy’ on top (squamulose) and can be pointed or flat. The way the
gills attach to the stem is also an important feature. One field that I checked close to where
lesser butterfly orchids were counted in June had good populations of the heath
waxcap (Hygrocybe laeta) and when the books says viscid brown/orange cap, stem
and edge of gills,
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| Heath waxcap (Hygrocybe laeta) |
they are not joking, and this species is quite difficult to
hold if you have to collect it for checking. This is a very helpful set of features making it
one of the easier species to identify. However,
there are two varieties so not everything is always that simple. There is a second slippery customer which
doesn’t have a common name, Hygrocybe vitelline, possibly more viscid that the
first one. Whilst checking the viscid
gills under the microscope I noticed quite a lot of blackish insects running
around not seeming to be affected by the slime, they even seemed to be feeding
on it. These were springtails, a sign
that the fungus was getting towards the end of life and these insects, sorry,
not insects, make
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| Viscid edges to gills top and springtails feeding in the gills of Hygrocybe vitellina |
use of that, finding a good food source. Despite having the usual six legs, some
evolutionary biologists and taxonomists decided a few years ago that these
‘beasties’ were not insects and were moved from the Order known as Insecta to
another called Entognatha, and are a difficult order to identify. Interestingly, it is thought that there might
be as many as 10,000 or possibly 100,000 per square metre across our
countryside. Amazing.
Shortly after returning from Lancashire we caught up with
the red admirals again in our garden with seven seen on the 17th. A few were recorded during suitable weather
after that, mostly feeding on kale flowers and the last one occurred on the 29th
just before a -30C frost the following night. We
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| Red admiral on kale flowers |
also saw good numbers in the amazing garden
at Logie Steading on 26th where the gardening staff told us that
they, like us, had seen good numbers throughout September into October. Highly productive apple trees in their
mini-orchard didn’t appear to be harvested, with lots of apples on the ground;
the blackbirds and thrushes were finding lots to feed on. On this occasion we didn’t see the
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| Logie House top and blackbird feeding on fallen apples |
red
admirals also feeding on the apples. The
country route home took us over the moors, past the controversial but now being
built Tom nan Clach wind farm before turning left along the shore of
Lochindorb. As we drove we could see
lots of whooper swans landing on the loch but just too far away to get a good
count, there must have been about 20. A
similar number were seen a few days later just outside Nethy Bridge, close to
the River Spey. Pink-feet were heard
passing overhead from
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| Whooper swans at Lochindorb |
the 2nd and redwings (mainly) and fieldfares
from mid-month. With hardly any berries
on the rowans this year few seemed to be hanging around though there was a
single redwing on the cotoneaster hedge competing for the berries with the
garden blackbirds, or could they have also been new arrivals? We await to see if the information of
hawfinches on the move produces any local records again this year.
A few hours (days!) were spent reading through the final
draft of a book being produced covering the history and natural history of
Abernethy Forest being written by Ron Summers from the RSPB Research
Department. Thankfully, a few outings
this last month helped with one of the corrections needed, honey fungus. In the past, honey fungus was known by just
one Latin name Armillaria mellea despite many
mycologists realising that ‘down the microscope’ they were seeing more than one
species. In time, it turned out that the
fungus known as honey fungus was a very complex group
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| Honey fungus group top and the distinctive brown scales on the stem ring of the dark honey fungus (Armillaria ostoyae) |
of species and over time
several names developed. The honey
fungus family are parasitic and do immense damage in forests where they attack
both conifers and broadleaved trees. As
with other fungi, the underground part of the fungus (mycelium) is known to spread
over vast areas and if the fungus has managed to infect one tree, the mycelium
can then infect another tree several metres away. A recent study in America has found via the
DNA, the mycelia of the same honey fungus has been found over several square
miles! In one of the aspen/hazel woods
where I’ve been recording ‘stuff’ a recent visit got me quite worried because
all over the place there were groups of fruiting bodies of honey fungus popping
out of the ground and, just out of interest I took a couple home. The handbook told me it was the dark honey
fungus (Armillaria ostoyae) when for all other finds I
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| Honey fungus fruiting up the trunk of dead Scots pine |
thought I was seeing
just, honey fungus. Under the cap of the
honey fungus group is something called the ‘stem ring’ where the veil that
covered the gills when the fungus was young was joined to the stem. On the white stem ring of my specimens there
were dark brown to black scales telling me that I had the dark honey
fungus. When checking Ron’s book, I saw
that we had, from the first draft, listed the honey fungus (A. mellea) and when
I checked all the local Abernethy records, all were for the dark honey fungus
so a very timely species check and correction.
A cycle ride round the local Dell Wood NNR with grandson Archie found a
most amazing sight, dark honey fungus growing several metres up a dead Scots
pine, something I can’t remember seeing before.
A lot of the early RSPB Abernethy Forest dark honey fungus
records came via the late Peter Orton, one of the UKs highly respected
mycologists. This was just one of about 700
fungi found and identified from our joint September outings over 15 years of
recording. Several waxcaps where
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| Roothole rosette (Stereopsis vitelline) and UK distribution map below |
identified for the first time by Peter, Hygrocybe splendidissimus P.D. Orton
for instance, so it was nice to find this waxcap in several locations this
autumn. I also remember his great
excitement at finding the roothole rosette (Stereopsis vitelline) under heather
by a track-side, the first time it had been seen in something like a hundred
years. In recent years this is a species
I continued to find and early in the month I found it very close to our first
find in 1999. I think the attached map
shows roughly where I live! Whilst on my
way back from visiting a site near Kincraig, where a very rare version of the
earth tongue fungus had been found a few years ago, I popped into the
controversial proposed new town site on Rothiemurchus. On a brilliant bit of natural grassland a
small inkcap
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| Winged inkcap top, winged spores and something that might be called 'the veil', all shown on the website helping with ID |
caught my eye and though this is a group of fungi I tend to avoid
I decided to take a sample home. Under
the microscope the spores looked a bit different from the ones I was expecting
so a bit of a search on the internet followed.
Purely by chance I happened onto a website that had many inkcaps listed
and eventually spores, which looked the same as mine, were found. And the name?
The winged inkcap (Coprinopsis semitalis (P.D. Orton)) another fungus
first found and named by Peter. On my outings
with Peter, and in later years with Gordon Dickson and Anne Leonard, I was
mainly a seeker and finder pointing out fungi or, if in a difficult place
(Peter visited until he was in his 80s) I would collect a specimen for him to
see. With the knowledge I now have about
quite a few of the regular fungi I wonder if we would have made any additional
finds? I doubt it, but I might have been
able to give him a name rather than a specimen.
However, in the time the ‘team’ were out recording we did find two
species that were new to Britain and also many species that are classed as rare
pinewood or Scottish species. An outing
when I had promised myself I was going for a walk and not a stop and search
version, soon changed when I first spotted an earth tongue and then something
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| The snaketongue truffleclub growing from the false truffle with more black fruiting bodies also visible |
similar, but more robust, which I was sure was the wonderfully named snaketongue
truffleclub (Tolypocladium or Cordyceps ophioglossoides). Parting the vegetation around the base of the
black fungus revealed the tell-tale yellow coloured root-like cords growing out
from the fungus and heading deeper underground to connect to, and parasitise a
false truffle (Elaphomyces species). The truffle in turn is connected to the roots
of nearby Scots pines where the tree and the truffle assist each other by
exchanging various chemicals. The above
ground truffleclub is the easy bit it’s the underground truffle that takes a
little time to identify being one of probably two species. In this case the truffle turned out to be Elaphomyces
granulatus. Having found one, several
more turned up by the track with around ten truffleclubs several linked to one
enormous truffle. These are not the
highly prized edible ones though many are dug up and eaten by red squirrels and
probably badgers.
On our return from Lancashire there were weather warnings
for gales and hurricane-force winds in the west of the UK as the remains of Tropical
Storm Ophelia arrived. Ireland took the
brunt of the storm with a few people losing their lives and much of the power
network being damaged. In our bit of the
UK there was little wind to worry about but during the 16th October
parts of Britain started to
experience red skies as a result of Ophelia having
dragged up sand and dust from the Sahara.
Added to this was also smoke rising from the major fires in Spain and
Portugal and though we didn’t see anything of the red skies something very odd
started to happen around 2pm in Nethybridge and elsewhere. Slowly, it started to get dark! It was almost like a total eclipse with birds
falling silent and street lights coming on.
As I went outside to take a few photos a group of people walking the
Speyside Way were completely baffled by the turn of events and must have been
wondering if they would reach their overnight stop before total darkness
descended. They needn’t have worried and
just as quickly as the darkness fell the light returned and an hour later the
sun was shining. How weird.
That’s it for another month, hope you enjoyed the read.
Stewart and Janet
Springtails
Stocks Reservoir
Logie Steading
Honey fungus the “Largest Single Living Organism On Earth”
Winged inkcap
https://www.asturnatura.com/fotografia/setas-hongos/coprinus-semitalis-p-d-orton-3/11834.html
to see details click on translate.
Parkswatch
Badenoch and Strathspey Conservation Group
Mapmate recording database
Fungal Records Database of Britain and Ireland (FRDBI)
BSBI – Botanical Society of the British Isles
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| Peter Orton at work |
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| Waxcap, spindle and coral list for 2017 |
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| Dance flies in the October sun |
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| Puffball fungus puffing spores |
Photos © Stewart Taylor
