Category Archives: Natural History

Conservation, Natural History, Nature Reserves

Expedition to Fray’s Farm … to collect logs

Unloading wheelbarrows from roof of Land-Rover at Fray’s Farm, one of London Wildlife Trust’s numerous reserves on the western edge of London. All we needed to do was to find the logs!

We fanned out across the reserve looking for log-piles. On the way, I found this beautiful Oak in full autumnal splendour, as well as a buzzard, a red kite, and a common darter dragonfly (not bad for mid-November), and a brief glimpse of a roe deer. Jules found a handsome Carabid ground beetle.

Anna and Netty loading the spoils. The logs were covered in lichens and the ones which had lain a year or two with elegant curtain crust fungi as well.

Natural History, Nature Reserves

Willow Emerald Damselfly Eggs in Willow Twig

Willow Emerald Damselfly Eggs in Willow Twig. The female cuts a slit in the bark for each egg. The cuts have healed up (by now, November) leaving a bump around each egg.

Willow Emerald Damselfly (photographed earlier this year). The species is very new to Britain, having arrived last year or not long before that; and this year is the first time we’ve seen them at Gunnersbury Triangle, so it’s very exciting to see the unique egg-laying traces!

Netty with glorious autumnal Aspen twig. The colours are exactly as photographed.

Natural History

Deer and Dragonflies … at Hallowe’en

Deer floating in sunny grass, Richmond Park

Well, I might reasonably have expected to see Red Deer in Richmond Park in today’s beautiful sunshine, but Dragonflies for Hallowe’en? That was a bit of a surprise. I saw that magical sparkle about 7 times, twice consisting of an attached pair (“in cop”) of Common Darters. Most of the rest were certainly also darters, but once I caught a flash of blue, so perhaps that was  a Migrant Hawker or more probably a Southern Hawker dashing into the distance on the breeze.

Natural History

Scything the Gunnersbury Triangle Ramp

Scything and raking the ramp meadow. An Evening Primrose, still in flower on 23 October, has been left. The wooden rail has been replaced by a linear loggery of Birch and Willow posts, providing habitat for insects and fungi.

This Bank Vole nest was exposed by the mowing. The vole itself could be seen wriggling through the remaining grass and leaves, and we all had a brief but good view of it as it emerged, chunky dark brown body, short tail, and slow progress very unlike a woodmouse.

The next day … we saw this Bank Vole eating Mugwort seeds in the wildflower area with the apple tree, next to the tool hut.

 

Natural History

Fantastic Fungus Foray at Gunnersbury Triangle!

Alick Henrici telling a few of the GT group about Fly Agaric (Amanita muscaria).

Boletus erythopus, a large brown mushroom and relative of the Cep, blue-staining when freshly cut. The colour is unprocessed , it really was that blue. Also called “Scarletina Bolete” and B. luridiformis.

All right, here you are. Amanita muscaria in all its glory

It was a beautifully sunny and warm late October day, and Alick was pessimistic. It had been far too dry for weeks and there would be very few fungi on the walk. But he admitted that children were very good at spotting mushrooms.

They were. We found 31 species,  more if you count the small Ascomycetes of the kinds whose fruiting bodies are little dots on rotting twigs.  Some indeed like the Fly Agaric and the Scarletina Bolete were large, colourful, and spectacular; others smaller and quieter, but often also beautiful, and all fascinating. None were stranger than Crepidotus mollis, the Peeling Oysterling, a bracket-shaped gill mushroom with a peeling cuticle, and an extraordinary jelly-like consistency revealed by gently stretching the cap, as shown in the photo.

Crepidotus mollis, a smooth thin cap with jelly-layer when stretched, found on path-edge log

Alick Henrici writes that he found four species new to the reserve during the Fungus Foray:

  1. Clitocybe phaeophthalma (aka C. hydrogramma); “nasty smell”
  2. Mycena crocata; “old specimen, unexpected but colours unmistakeable”
  3. Panellus stipticus; “a common late season species on wood”
  4. Pleurotus dryinus; “on Elder at post 6, not very common but often on this host”