Some interesting fungi

Striated bird's nest Cyathus striatus growing on decayed wood. Each of the cup-shaped 'nests' contains egg-shaped structures called peridioles that contain the spores. Photographed in Slindon Woods, near Chichester, West Sussex.

In these field bird's nests Cyathus olla you can see the 'eggs', which are attached to a fine thread and are splashed out of the 'nest' by raindrops and become entangled in surrounding vegetation. When they dry out they then discharge their spores into the airstream. For more detailed explanation, click here.These specimens were photographed in Durham, growing in a garden border of perennial plants that had been cut back for the winter.

Bog beacon Mitrula paludosa, a tiny jelly fungus.

These bog beacons were growing on a waterlogged bed of decaying spruce needles in Hamsterley Forest, Co. Durham.

Eyelash fungus Scutellinia scutellata growing on wood chips after tree felling in Hamsterley forest, Co. Durham. Each of the orange cups is surrounded by long hairs that look like eyelashes.

Terracotta hedgehog fungus Hydnum rufescens. The majority of toadstools carry their spores on radial gills or on the surface of pores but in this genus the spores are attached to tooth-like structures under the cap. Growing under beech trees in Hamsterley Forest, Co. Durham.

A luxuriance of lichens

Today's Guardian Country Diary is about the way in which the right combination of habitat factors - light, humidity and shelter from the wind - can coincide to provide conditions that favour the luxuriant growth of lichens on trees.

All of these lichen species were festooning just three larch trees in a plantation in Hamsterley forest. The trees were at close commercial spacing in neat rows, but only three on the outside row, in a dip in the ground, carried a dense population of lichens. The next row in, about five feet behind, had a few but the row beyond those, that would have been too shaded in summer when the larches carried needles, had none at all.

This beauty, also shown in the four photos immediately below, is (I think) Usnea subfloridana. Its delicate branches don't respond well to being buffeted by gales but in this sheltered location it hung like beards from the trees.

I've yet to identify the following species but they too covered the lower branches of the larches.

Ramalina farinaceae (?)

Hypogymnia physoides (?)

Evernia prunastri (?)

Cetraria chlorophylla (?)

Hypogymnia physoides (?)

Cladonia fimbriata (?) growing on an old larch cone

A magnificent veteran beech tree

There are some fine stands of native trees scattered throughout Hamsterley Forest's commercial conifer plantations here in country Durham. None is more impressive than this venerable beech tree, growing next to an old dry stone wall that must have been part of the field system before the forest was planted. 

This is one of the largest and most impressive beeches that I've encountered and it probably benefits from the shelter of the surrounding conifers, although the top of its crown is taller than they are. But it's real glory lies in its magnificent convoluted bole - folded, fissured and branching from low down in a way that suggests that it must have been pollarded or lost its leading shoot earlier in its life. 

Now all those folds and cavities make it an excellent wildlife habitat. Over the last decade or so it has acquired a fine fungal flora, in the form of ......

....... these massive brackets of Ganoderma australe, commonly known as the southern bracket. The fungus is undoubtedly killing the tree very slowly. The crown is still as leafy as I remember it when I first saw it, almost 40 years ago. I would not be in the least surprised it it survives for several more decades.

Ganoderma is a perennial bracket fungus, producing a new hymenial layer (the spore producing tissue) annually over a decade or more. Here you can see this year's fresh white hymenium on the underside of the brackets.

The tan-coloured stain on the trunk is a coating of spores, that are released in billions.

The 'shelf' formed by the upper surface of the old brackets has become carpeted with mosses ......

..... while the upper surfaces of those immediately below becomes covered with a thick layer of spores, like a coating of cocoa powder. The dark area under this bracket is one of several temporary pools formed when rainwater trickles down the trunk and collects in folds and rot-holes. Temporary pools like this are known as phytotelmata and are home to vast numbers of tiny protists and animals. When I took a sample from this one and looked at it under the microscope it was seething with oligochaete worms and tardigrades, feeding on the single-celled protists which in turn were feeding on the soup of fungal spores in the water.

Green common lizard

Another old photograph found in the back of a cupboard.

Taken about 20 years ago in Hamsterley Forest and showing an unusual emerald green variant of the viviparous lizard. 

I'm not sure whether is was a young one in the process of acquiring more typical colours or whether it was part of a population whose colours were better adapted to a forest habitat. I've never seen another green one.

Those that live on open moorland nearby are usually coloured with shades of brown, grey and buff. Click here for a photo of a more typical local example.

Right time, right place, wrong gear ...

A recent photograph on Flickr by Bob the Bolder showed a salmon leaping the wear on the River Wear just below Durham cathedral in mid-August, which is early for these fish to start moving up river to spawn. 


One October afternoon five years ago I happened to be walking past Spurleswood beck in Hamsterley forest in Weardale just at the time when salmon were trying to leap the waterfall there. We watched for half an hour while fish after fish hurled itself into the torrent but none made it to the top. Conditions were probably close to perfect for the fish, with the beck in spate and a deep plunge pool below the waterfall where the upwelling water would have given the fish extra impetus, so maybe some made it after we left. 

It's hard to be sure whether these were sea trout or salmon but judging from the indentation in the tail fin I think they were salmon. Sea trout tend to have a straight trailing edge to the tail fin.

I didn't have any decent photographic gear with me when I took these bu,t judging by Bob the Bolder's photo, now is the time to plan for a return visit............

What's the model for this mimic?

Hoverflies, without stings, are well known for mimicking the colours and patterns of stinging wasps so the standard issue markings for most hoverflies are some variation on the theme of black and yellow stripes. This species, Leucozona glauca, is the exception to the rule and is turned out in this attractive black and denim blue colour scheme ...... which begs the question as to whether it's mimicking something or is simply a genetic variant with no particular natural selective benefit or disadvantage. 

According to British Hoverflies by Alan Stubbs and Steven Falk the markings on this species are normally yellow but this blue variant occurs frequently.  I haven't encountered it often and this one is part of a population that lives along a woodland ride in Hamsterley Forest, Co. Durham and is often quite abundant when hogweed and angelica are in flower. This individual is a female, identifiable by the widely spaced eyes.

It seems to have been quite a good summer for some hoverflies in my part of Co. Durham. I had a quite a few of this one, which I think is a particularly attractive variant of Helophilus pendulus, in my garden where it seemed to be partial to meadow crane'sbill flowers. 

I'm not completely sure what this large hoverfly species is but I think it may well be Sericomyia  silentis..... a convincing wasp mimic. It's been quite common in Teesdale throughout August and early September and I've seem several on  devil's bit scabious, which is supposed to be particular attractive to this species.

Northern winter moth

Moth identification is not my forte but since there aren't many around to choose from at this time of the year I've whittled down the possibilities and am going to hazard a guess that this might be a northern winter moth Operophtera fagata (but I'd welcome any more accurate suggestions). It was resting on fallen beech leaves in Hamsterley Forest this morning and since beech is listed as a food plant, and since in Waring and Townsend's Field Guide to Moths of Great Britain and Ireland it's described as 'similar to a winter moth, but paler and somewhat silky in appearance..' it seems plausible. Correct ID or not, I really liked the combination of shapes, textures and autumnal colours....

A Forest in the Fog

Thursday's Guardian Country Diary describes a visit to Hamsterley Forest in Co. Durham on a foggy day.

The forest is a mixture of deciduous trees and conifers, with some fine beech plantations and some ancient oaks. Forests have a wonderfully mysterious, spooky quality when the sun begins to break through the fog.

In addition to the usual Scots pine and Sitka and Norway spruces there are some less familiar conifers, like this western hemlock. Its blunt resinous needles have an appealingly fruity, citrus-like aroma  when you crush them.

Hamsterley is always a good destination for a fungal foray - this (I think) is the larch bolete Suillus grevillei and this ...

... is yellow stag'shorn Calocera viscosa.

This looks like Coriolus versicolor, not yet fully expanded. The brackets exude droplets of moisture underneath.

And finally, one toadstool that's unmistakeable - stinkhorn Phallus impudicus. These always appear in large numbers in early autumn in a Norway spruce plantation in the forest and if you happen to be approaching from downwind you become aware of their presence from some distance. This is a perfect specimen that must have grown up overnight ....

.... and here' one that's probably a day old. Flies have carried off all its sticky brown spores, leaving one late arrival with nothing to eat. Slugs have already made inroads into the remains.

Antopolis

Hamsterley Forest http://www.forestry.gov.uk/hamsterleyforest, which lies between Weardale and Teesdale, is home to an enormous variety of fascinating wildlife, ranging from nightjars and crossbills to adders, badgers and deer, but these wood ants are amongst the most amazing and perhaps the most numerous of all the animals in the forest. The bottom photo shows a nest, built of pine needles and often half a metre high. Each nest is reckoned to be home to around half a million ants. The ants’ nests are rather like icebergs, with most of the galleries and chambers hidden below the surface, and in some places there are several nests linked together underground, forming an ant metropolis. The top of the nest seethes with ants, constantly setting out in long columns on foraging expeditions that take them right to the top of tall conifers in search of small insects that they bring back to the brood. Understandably, the presence of these ants is welcomed by the foresters because this free pest-control workforce destroys a significant proportion of the pests that infest conifers, although the ants farm the aphids rather than killing them, collecting the sugary honeydew that the aphids excrete. It’s best not to hang around for too long when you’re photographing these nests, as the occupants quickly find a way up your trouser leg and have a very painful bite. You can read more about wood ants (and access photos and videos) at the following web siteshttp://www.treesforlife.org.uk/tfl.woodants.html
http://www.arkive.org/scottish-wood-ant/formica-aquilonia/
http://www.arkive.org/hairy-wood-ant/formica-lugubris/
http://www.arkive.org/southern-wood-ant/formica-rufa/