Birds and Beer

NORWICH: White Saddles

12th December 2019

On the previous day's walk into work I had noticed a fungus growing near the path that looked like a Helvella sp, but it was dark and rainy so I resolved to check it out the following day. This I did, and as suspected there were several rather large specimens of White Saddle, Helvella crispa. A species I see most years in woodland, but that I'd not expected alongside a footpath in central Norwich!

This large specimen had already been knocked over

NORWICH: Some winter fungi at Catton Park

8th December 2019

It had been a few weeks since I'd managed to get out and go for a walk, so I took a quick walk down to the wooded edge of Catton Park before strong rain saw me return home. There were very few birds about, but there was still some fungi, the most interesting of which were Ramaria flaccida, a type of coral that grows beneath conifers, and Fenugreek Stalkball, a tiny species that grows in cracks in tree trunks and smells of fenugreek when dried.

WHITLINGHAM: November WeBS count & a new fungus for Norfolk

17th November 2019

For the second part of a busy weekend I headed down to Whitlingham for the November WeBS count. Three Little Egrets were perched up in the Alders on the far side of the Little Broad - up to seven have been seen roosting here this year so the roost appears to be fairly well established. A Brambling called and some Siskin flew over.

The Great Broad looked quite barren around the west end (the Barnacle Goose was still on the slipway), but there were quite a few Coot along the northern shore and a big flock of gulls and Tufted Ducks at the eastern end. There were large numbers of Black-headed Gulls but quite a bit of disturbance so no chance of any ring-reading. Other birds of note included 1 Shoveler, 14 Pochard, 10 Little Grebes and an Aythya hybrid previously seen by Gary White (you can see his photos of it here). Selected comparisons with last year are below (note how close Tufted Duck and Coot numbers are!):

Mallard 40 (2018: 56)

Gadwall 61 (2018: 160)

Tufted Duck 195 (2018: 197)

Pochard 14 (2018: 29)

Coot 144 (2018: 143)

Little Grebe 10 (2018: 6)

When I got to the pumphouse I diverted up into the woods to have a look at a fallen tree that I had been told about the previous day by Anne Crotty. This old Oak trunk had a good display of Black Bulgar growing on it, a species I've seen before but not at Whitlingham. A quick search around the immediate area turned up some Brown Cups and Yellow Stagshorn. Back at the country park there was one more fungus of interest. I saw a small group of Russulas, mostly dark purple but with an older specimen pinkish capped. Russulas are a tricky group to identify, but my interest was riased by the fact that this was with Alder and Willow, neither particularly common associates for Brittlegills. I keyed one of them out, and with some help from national expert Geoffrey Kibby it emerged that I had found Russula atrorubens, a species new to Norfolk and with only a handful of national records.

Russula atrorubens

EAST NORFOLK: Crostwight Heath fungi

16th November 2019

On Saturday I attended the last full-length study group fungus foray of the year at Crostwight Heath in north-east Norfolk. My dad grew up in the area so I used to visit as a child, but a look through my records showed I'd not visited the heath since 2011, when I got nice views of some basking Grass Snakes.

With little adjacent parking it had been arranged for us to park in a nearby farmyard. Whilst we were getting ready to walk down to the heath two skeins of Pink-footed Geese flew past, a reminder that we were quite close to the coast. Walking along the lane we arrived at the edge of some woodland, and immediately began to find quite a lot of fungi on a steep bank, including lots of Hare's Ear and some Tricholoma spp. One of these turned out to be Chemical Knight, but the other one which was identified in the field was Yellowing Knight, a new species for me.

Heading up onto the heath we walked past a large area of Slender Clubs and a couple of Powdery Brittlegills. Amongst the range of species seen Yellow Brain stood out, because although it is a common species there were large patches of it along the mature Gorse stems. A mystery Stropharia was identified later as Stropharia inuncta, my second new species of the day. Out on the open heath there was an old bonfire site on which was growing Bonfire Scalycap and a cup fungus, Peziza granulosa. The latter actually isn't one of the specific bonfire-site fungi, but was still another new species for me. We stopped for lunch and a Lesser Redpoll flew over calling.

Rather than push on across some quite similar heathland we decided to go back along the edge of the site and spend a bit of time in the woodland opposite. Species seen along the edge included Scurfy Deceiver, Blushers, Bleeding Oak Crust and a nice display of Clustered Bonnets on an old log.

Across the road a Dog Stinkhorn was of interest, and Stewart managed to find the leaf mine of Virgin Pigmy (Ectoedemia argyropeza) in an Aspen leaf, the first record for this block of 10km squares. Another excellent find by Stewart was a small black weevil covered in a fungus. Even better he managed to identify the fungus, Beauveria bassiana. The final find of the day was spectacular, probably double the size of the last one I saw - it was Leafy Brain fungus.

We walked back to the cars (seeing a Muntjac browsing in a meadow on the way), but before going had a look at a heap of decomposing straw. There wasn't a lot of fungi on it, but someone did point out some old Grass Snake eggs - good to see that years after my last visit they are still going strong.

NORWICH: Saffron Milkcap

5th November 2019

Readers with some knowledge of fungi will probably be familiar with the genus Lactarius, the Milkcaps, which exude a milk-like latex when the cap or gills are damaged. There are however a handful of Lactarius species that give out a bright orange latex instead of white. On my way to work I spotted one of these species, looking rather plain and unobtrusive below a Pine tree. This was a good clue that it might be Saffron Milkcap, Lactarius deliciosus, (the slightly commoner False Saffron Milkcap is usually under Spruce), but I took one to go through the series of checks needed to confirm it. Below are some photos outlining the things seen:

The left hand fungus is in situ, showing how unspectacular it looks (they can look brighter than this). The right hand one shows the gills being broken and giving off orange 'milk'

This sections shows that the fungus bruises slowly green when broken

Here you can see some small 'pits' on the stem near the base - these are called scrobiculations and are a good feature for this species

Size and shape of spores is often important, but with things like Russulas and Lactarius you often need to look even closer (this is at 1000x using an oil immersion lens). Using some close focusing you can see a network of ridges on the spore on the right. They were also present on the one on the left, but because of the depth of field you could only focus on one at a time.

Two final points, firstly here you can see the gill attachment to the stem is slightly decurrent (the gills do go onto the stem but not in a flowing arc like they would in a funnel for example. Secondly, the edge that is broken up and had given off orange latex earlier has now turned a wine red over time.

These things, combined with spore size, it being under pine and a drop of the latex tasting mild but turning slightly bitter, confirmed the ID.

YARE VALLEY: More Strumpshaw fungi

3rd November 2019

On Sunday I helped lead the second of the two fungi walks at Strumpshaw Fen. There had been some strong winds recently that meant a blanket of leaves covered much of the ground in places, but we still managed to find a good range of species, including a handful not seen on the earlier walk. The first of these 'new' species was Death Cap (Amanita phalloides), one of the most poisonous species in Britain, with a large group found under some Beech trees.

We then moved on to the log circle, which had fewer species than in October, and next into the clearing where we saw a very nice 'swarm' of small white discomycetes.

Having spent quite a bit of time relatively close to reception we set off for the woods and I noticed an interesting looking clump of Mycena by the path. Suspecting that they might be one of the ones that produce latex when broken, I snapped a stem. It gave off a dark red, blood-like latex, which combined with the deciduous wood made it Burgundrydrop Bonnet (Mycena haematopus). Further along we saw Crimped Gill (Plicatura crispa), a species with fake 'gills' made out of folds in the underside of the cap, and finally a couple of Blushers (Amanita rubescens) amongst a group of Spotted Toughshank (Rhodocollybia maculata).

SUFFOLK: Minsmere fungi and fairy doors

Late October 2019

At the end of the month we went to Minsmere, where there was a 'wild things' trail around the woods, featuring fairy doors, wooden carved mushrooms and some sort of root creatures with eyes. This is the sort of thing that on smaller reserves might annoy local birders, but Minsmere is big enough that the trail was away from the main birding bits of the reserve. Incidentally now having a young daughter makes me appreciate things like this to attract families and children who otherwise might not visit nature reserves much more than I used to, although events do need to be compatible with the area they are being held in - for example fun runs around areas with lots of birds are probably a step too far I think.

The trail was in the woodland back along the track from the main car park, and we got off to an inauspicious start, with the way apparently blocked by a couple of logs. Usually this would be a sign that a path is closed, but there were several as we went round and I assume that they were placed deliberately to encourage children to clamber over. We then went off trail, as the path actually went along the east side of the woodland tower hide, but the map we'd been given had the path roughly marked on but going quite a bit to the west of the tower. All that said, the trail was nice when we actually stayed on it.

This autumn has been excellent for fungi, and the woods at Minsmere were packed with it. I recorded 39 species, which was good considering it was a family trip so I was trying not to linger too long and I didn't take anything home to check. Some of the more photogenic species are shown below.