What a fine sight, a Shire Horse at work pulling logs out of the woods at Chiswick Park!
The team of two men were soft-spoken Irish and efficient, unflappable even when one dog after another came excitedly up to investigate the unusual scent. The actual moving of each batch of logs took a few seconds and was amazingly hard to photograph as most of the action was on narrow temporary paths among the trees. Of course that is exactly why a horse is better than a tractor, as there is no need to cut new roads through the woods to extract the lumber, and no danger of getting stuck in the mud either.
The fruiting body of the Scarlet Elf-cup is a week old, and past its best: it is getting a parasitic mildew on the outside, and the edge is curling up. Still, it’s a nice surprise to see a colourful fungus at this time of year.
Ramalina (shrubby, grey-green) and Xanthoria (leafy, orange) lichens on old Hawthorn, Wraysbury LakesLeafy (Parmelia-like) and crustose lichens on Hawthorn bush, Wraysbury LakesA very ordinary-looking Hawthorn bush!
Gunnersbury Triangle pond in icy weatherAn awful lot of Fox footprints beside the District Line… taken from the footbridge between Acton Green and Belmont School. It seems the fox(es) walk up and down (tracks on left) on the flat beside the railway, as well as criss-crossing the area looking for food.
The book’s authors assembled to sign copies: (from left) Roger Tichborne (blogger), Lisa Woodward (manager of London Wetland Centre), Philip Briggs (runs National Bat Monitoring Programme), Gary Backler (chair of Friends of the River Crane), Ian Alexander (London Wildlife Trust volunteer, author of The English Love Affair with Nature), Susanne Masters (botanist of edible plants), and Wanda Bodnar (marine data scientist and paddleboarder)
Geographic … Oxfordshire Map in Woodstock Museum … does look much the same, doesn’t it?
Roots of a Beech tree in the park, straight from Middle-earthWaxcap! Probably the Butter Waxcap, Hygrocybe ceracea: quite a few of them in a quiet corner among the grassA huge Artist’s Bracket, Ganoderma applanatum, on Beech, its preferred hostPerhaps Rootlet Brittlestem, Psathyrella microrhiza
Humaria hemisphaerica – glazed cup fungusGeastrum striatum – streaked earthstar (the smaller cousin of the collared earthstar, also found in the Triangle)Stereum hirsutum – orange curtain crustDaedaleopsis confragosa – Blushing Bracket – discolours reddish when scratched, as you can seeNetty, now with the RSPB, and volunteer Olwyn by the pond during the fungus forayFungus expert Alick Henrici collecting some interesting-looking ear fungiThe Candlesnuff fungus, Xylaria hypoxylon, has now grown into some glorious Stagshorn shapes, all around the reserveTremella cf. foliacea, the yellow brain fungusXerocomellus (formerly Xerocomus), a Bolete mushroom (in the Cep family) with little tubes ending in pores on the underside of the cap, not gillsHyphodontia sambuci – elder whitewash (as here, not always on Elder). Lovers of Italy will know Sambuca as an elderberry and anise liqueur!Tricholoma cf. album, the white knight, in the anthill meadowAgaricus sp., an edible mushroom in the same genus as the commercial champignon de Paris and the field mushroomLepista inversa, the tawny funnel, a mushroom in the same genus as the delicious wood blewits
Gunnersbury Triangle’s acid grassland fringed by silver birches on old railway track, in beautiful “Indian Summer” October sunshine. The railway clinker was of hard acidic rock, brought (obviously) by rail, from somewhere up north or out west.One day’s tomato harvest!Cox’s Orange Pippins from the garden
New Antlers! Strips of ‘velvet’ – the layer of skin that (astonishingly rapidly) develops the antlers, from nothing each year – are hanging from the tines. The deer are today in small groups, quite unlike the massed winter herds. The stags are still sitting unconcernedly with the hinds and other stags, but evidently not for much longer. Soon it’ll be the rutting season.
At the Beverley Brook, we were lucky enough – it was quiet enough – to come close to a Heron, fishing in the stream; and just at that moment, a Kingfisher darted up-river, brilliant turquoise, heartstoppingly beautiful. It landed on a willow branch above the water: such a small bird, such perfect colours.
‘Common’ Blue butterfly in the wide meadows of Richmond Park
