Category Archives: Nature Reserves

Love of Nature, Natural History, Nature Reserves

Fabulous fungus Foray in Chiswick!

LWT Conservation Officer Netty Ribeaux and mushroom expert Alick Henrici briefing the early arrivals
Collared Earthstar

Well, here is the list that I wrote down as we went round. I’m sure that Alick Henrici who was leading the group named more species than this, and he also declined to name several difficult species which he collected in his little box to take for analysis back at Kew by his colleague Geoffrey Kibbey! Still, the fact that the group found so many – and there was no doubt at all that having more pairs of eyes resulted in more finds – was surprising to most people present. We walked anticlockwise around the reserve, and found the species in the order shown.

Hypholoma fasciculare, the very common but pretty yellow Sulphur Tuft, on a loggery near the start of the walk. It’s always on rotting wood.

Trametes (Coriolus) versicolor, the Turkeytail, a very common but elegant little bracket, forming troops on fallen branches and logs. The name Coriolus seems like the Coriolis effect that makes storms whirl around, and it does have a whirly effect on its patterned top surface.

Stereum hirsutum, another very common species, the Hairy Curtain Crust or False Turkeytail, forms a white crust on logs, its top gently velvety (hence ‘hirsutum’, hairy), with no pores

An Ascomycete, a spore-shooting fungus with its spores 4 in a row under the microscope, forming firm little brown balls on logs.

Schizopora paradoxa, thin white layer on logs

Piptoporus betulinus, the Birch Polypore or Razorstrop Fungus – when dried it was used to put a polish on the old Sweeney Todd the Barber type of cutthroat razor! Finding it is practically guaranteed on dead Birch wood, standing or fallen.

Fruiting bodies of a slime mould (not a typical fungus)

A slime mould, forming small squashy grey-brown blobs on rotting logs.

Laxitextum bicolor – you saw it here first! The name bicolor means coloured differently on the top and bottom – as you can see, the underside is very pale, the top a rich dark brown with a creamy edge.

Dark trooping bracket Laxitextum bicolor, new to UK in last 5 years, first record from Gunnersbury Triangle today! Alick said it seemed to be making itself quite at home, and indeed while those of us who recognise a few of the common brackets couldn’t have placed this species, we’d never have guessed it was brand new.

Ramariopsis subtilis (Clavariaceae), a small white Coral fungus with antler-like branches
Lycoperdum perlatum, the common Puffball, here very ripe and ready to puff spores at the slightest touch

Lycoperdum perlatum, the common Puffball. Alick told us the marvellously funny etymology of the name: Lykos is Greek for wolf, perdon for fart, and perlatum is Latin for pearly, meaning the surface decoration. Perhaps the puff of brown spores when you touch an old specimen is the wolf’s fart, who knows.

Mycena spp.

Ganoderma adspersum, Southern bracket, a round solid plate of a fungus, hard as nails, growing on a Willow stump
Russula sp., a colourful Brittlegill (yes, the caps are fragile, but distinctively thick). There are lots of species in greys, yellows, reds, pinks, and purples. This one has been nibbled by slugs. Some people eat them but there are some red species called Sickeners, definitely not a good idea.

Tricholoma album

Otidea alutacea, the tan ear (related to O. onotica, the hare’s ear), a small fungus of bare ground. Notethe birch leaf for size.

Hebeloma sp., a Poisonpie toadstool

Cortinarius sp. (Webcaps), subgenus Telamonia, a very difficult group, separated by DNA analysis. Into Alick’s box it went!

Geastrum triplex, the Collared Earthstar (photo at top), a really handsome and uncommon fungus. We seem to be getting it every year here now, a delight. Alick has found 3 species of Earthstar here in Gunnersbury Triangle.

Melanoleuca sp., a cavalier mushroom

Tricholoma cf fulvum, the Birch Knight mushroom. Fulvum means tawny yellow, and yes, it’s always with Birch trees.
Ramaria Coral fungus growing on a several-year-old logpile, dark and damp. Looks close to R. stricta, the upright coral, in the book but there are numerous species, not all illustrated there.

Clavaria sp., a small species of club fungus

Armillaria mellea, the Honey Fungus, a dangerous parasite of trees, and it continues to flourish as a saprophyte after they are dead, rotting their wood. Its English name is for its warm honey colour. It can be eaten but who’d want to.

GT Mycena olida (always on moss), a tiny species also called the Rancid Bonnet, best recognised by its habitat!

Mycena archangeliana

Laccaria amethystina, the Amethyst Deceiver, quite a beautiful colour in the grass; it fades when dried.

We saw no fewer than 3 species of Deceiver, including Laccaria laccata, the (common) Deceiver, as well as the two illustrated here. The group is well named; beginners collect handfuls of interesting-looking mushrooms of all different shapes, sizes, and appearances, and are crestfallen to discover they’re all the same species!

Laccaria proxima, the scurfy Deceiver. It has a wrinkled stipe with whitish lines, and a darker cap

Inocybe geophylla, the white Fibrecap

Mycena rosea, the Rosy Bonnet, one of the larger bonnet mushrooms

Mycena pura, the very common and variable Lilac Bonnet, another relatively large and attractive bonnet mushroom. The Collins guide says that some think M. rosea is just a form of this species.

Natural History, Nature Reserves

Large Red Damselflies in Gunnersbury triangle

Suddenly, after a freezing but dry April and a warmer but moist (April Showers) May, it’s June and Summer. The hazels have rushed into full leaf; the brambles are pushing across the paths at astonishing speed; Azure Damselflies have all hatched at once and are sunning themselves near the pond; and pairs of Large Red Damselflies are urgently flying about, all 8 wings in harmony, in their complex mating system, to lay eggs rapidly on pond plants before it all dries up. Like their much larger cousins, the Dragonflies, Damselflies are predators, and fiercely competitive for their territory; males chase off not only other males but other insects.

Conservation, Nature Reserves

Keeping Chiswick’s Wet Woodland Wet

Sedge removed (a tuft still visible bottom right), much mud still to scoop out …

Well, it’s late November, the animals aren’t breeding, and the flowers are mostly not flowering (Rowan and Cotoneaster are honourable exceptions). So, it’s the perfect time for clearing out the Wet Woodland (Carr) to keep it looking, well, Wet, rather than getting more and more overgrown and full of leaf litter until it turns into good old ordinary dry woodland, or Mixed Temperate Forest as an ecologist would say.

Mudscooping the Wet Woodland (aka the “Mangrove Swamp”)

There’s always a debate about why we do this sort of thing. Shouldn’t we just do George Monbiot’s Rewilding thing and leave nature alone? Well, we could. Then the reserve’s pond, wet woodland, meadows, grassy banks, and demonstration flowerbed would all go through the succession to mixed woodland, and we’d have an end-to-end canopy of trees: not a bad thing you might say.

But we would lose much of the diversity of habitats and of species – no pond life, no grassland flowers or grassland butterflies, for instance. In a large enough area, that would be fine: the rivers would flood and meander, create new oxbow lakes, mudflats, and shingle banks, which would be colonized and grow up into varied ponds, wet woodland, meadows, and forest, just as you’d hope.

Muddy but Happy!

Only one small problem: you need to include a river’s catchment area and flood plain in the reserve. That’d be the whole of Oxfordshire, Berkshire, and London, roughly…

So, to be practical, in an urban nature reserve you only get a small area to conserve, to allow people to visit to see and feel and smell and touch nature, and to teach children (and adults) about nature. Those are worthy aims, and they’re the raison d’etre of London Wildlife Trust. To manage that, one needs to maintain a bit of diversity of habitats and of species for people to see and learn about. And that means holding back the natural succession so that not every inch is a tree canopy, splendid as canopies are. And that means having volunteers scoop mud, mow grass, and pull out tree seedlings, all the while trying to leave enough seeds, eggs and other life-forms in place for the reserve to burst back into life at all stages of the succession.

Yes, we know George Monbiot calls all that “gardening”: but really, it’s not. We’re just creating the conditions for nature to do its own thing, or rather, a lot of its different and wonderful things.

Chaotic patterns of wet mud running into erosion gullies down the flat face of a wheelbarrow. The pattern forms within a minute of tipping mud from the barrow: different every time, but always giving the same wonderfully beautiful natural result.

Actually, one can hardly help letting nature do its thing. It does it even in the mud in a wheelbarrow!

Nature Reserves

On the Swale NNR

The Swale National Nature Reserve, seen here looking southwest from Shellness, is an extensive area of brackish saltings, formerly saltmarsh (top right), with a shelly beach and rich mudflats (left) beside the Swale, the channel that separates the Isle of Sheppey from mainland Kent. A Second World War blockhouse is in the distance.

To reach Shellness one has to jolt very slowly along a long, straight, dusty, potholed track, minding out for one’s shock-absorbers. The reward is a magically quiet, spacious realm of … nothingness. Wide mudflats with occasional Shelducks. Wide horizons. Long empty shelly berms above empty windswept beaches. Sea kale. Sea lavender. Sea campion. Sea everything. The song of skylarks over the wind.

A Meadow Pipit chooses a good vantage point on the lichen-covered blockhouse.

The cry of a Black-Tailed Godwit over the marsh draws my attention to an elegant medium-sized wader with its long straight bill and agile flight. On the groynes and mudflats are plenty of cheerful Oystercatchers, resting or foraging in little groups. A Little Egret flaps distinctively past.

Beside the path is a little beach, marked off with a sign, posts and a plastic rope for a “rare” colony of Little Terns. I scan it with binoculars, and am lucky enough to catch one in flight; it lands out on the mudflat, its long wings poking out past its tail, a slender sea-swallow.

Three Oystercatchers feeding on the Swale mudflats

Even as I parked up, some chunky Corn Buntings flitted overhead giving their sharp calls. They were once common in farmland everywhere. A single Swallow flew past.

Sea Campion

Along the mudflats occasional Ringed Plovers went their solitary ways. The telescope showed little groups of Shelducks in quite large numbers — perhaps I saw 50 all told. A few Black-Headed and Herring Gulls, and as always a few Starlings (convinced they were waders) visited the marsh. A sudden flock of a hundred Dunlins, wheeling and sweeping together, made me catch my breath, a glimpse of wild beauty.

Sea Beet, the origin of Spinach Beet, our favourite green leafy vegetable

Over the marsh, Skylarks kept lifting up for their song-flights, pouring out their astonishing, continuous, rich melody until they were almost invisibly high in the sky. It was impossible not to think of Shelley’s poem To a Skylark (“Hail to thee, blithe spirit, bird thou never wert …”), so marvellously immaterial did they seem in the wind and the bright sky.

At the little headland, bounded by a muddy, marshy creek, a Redshank flew up, piping.

This Yellow Wagtail landed just in front of me at the end of the walk, hawking quietly for flies, mostly on foot.

As I returned, a Yellow Wagtail, seemingly almost tame, walked unconcernedly along the path in front of me. I ate my picnic sitting below the dyke out of the wind, absorbing the space and sunshine, my heart full of birdsong.


Love of Nature, Natural History, Nature Reserves

A Six-Warbler Walk at Wraysbury

After a long cold spell, it again felt like spring today, and despite the cloud I went to Wraysbury, thinking that it could be a good time for warblers.

I was greeted by a pair of Cormorants on a bleached branch beside the lake. And a moment later by the first of many Blackcaps. Warbler the first.
A little way along the path, a rapid and rich warble went on .. and on .. and on – aha! A Garden Warbler. (How to tell Garden from Blackcap? “Blackcap’s Brief.” Well, good enough for a first approximation.) Warbler the second.

I walked on a few paces, and glimpsed something small and brown in the willows. Binoculars showed an unmistakable Garden Warbler – Sylvia borin[g] – pretty much uniformly coloured, or rather, so beautifully countershaded that it looks flat in sunlight, quite the clever camouflage trick.

It started to sing – and was almost drowned out by the deafening repetitive din of a Cetti’s Warbler (roughly, Chwit-i-Pit-i-Pit! Chwit-i-Pit-i-Pit!), as usual without a glimpse of the songster. Warbler the third.

I then saw my first Banded Demoiselle, indeed my first flying damselfly or dragonfly, of the year. It’s always a lovely moment. A few bright yellow (male) Brimstone butterflies skittered about or sunbathed: perhaps the butter-coloured insect is the original “butter fly”, or perhaps the name refers to the fluttering flight of the whole group – it must make them very hard for predators like birds and dragonflies to catch them, and given how common it is to see a butterfly with holes pecked in its wings, it is easy to believe that anti-predator adaptations are highly advantageous.

Other conspicuous insects were a lot of Sawflies, looking much like tiny red wasps with black-and-yellow striped tails, and numerous large Bumblebees enjoying the purple Comfrey which is abundant beside the river.

The droning chatter of a Reed Warbler came out of another Willow beside the lake: Warbler the fourth.

From across the river, just audible but quite definite, came the Chiff-Chaff-Chiff-Chaff-Chiff-Chaff song of .. you guessed it. Warbler the fifth.

Across the bridge and onto the flat scrub, and in almost the first bush was a Whitethroat singing its short simple scratchy ditty. (Presumably female Whitethroats find it enticing. Or other males find it repellent, one or the other. Maybe both, actually.) Warbler the sixth.

I reconnoitred the wood-and-scrubby area for possible Willow Warblers (they don’t inhabit willows any more than Willow Tits do), but they don’t seem to have arrived yet. Some Song Thrushes improvised their fine, repeated melodies of many different repeated phrases.

A six-warbler walk … one of the delights of May.

Conservation, Environment, Nature Reserves

Putting the Gran Turismo into Gunnersbury Triangle!

The Race Team, putting the “GT” into Gunnersbury Triangle … one of the more bizarre bits of rubbish that must have flown over the fence when there was a garage next door (It seems to be the exhaust pipe of a large motorcycle; and Sarah’s jacket is from sailing races round the Isle of Wight)

Flagon and Oil Can … not to mention the hundred beer cans, dozens of energy drink cans, lemonade bottles, bits of insulation, cable, and mirror … it’s really convenient to heave your rubbish over the fence into the nature reserve, ideal place for it …

Auricularia mesenteroides, a relative of Jew’s Ear, a jelly-like fungus with indeed a mesenteric appearance. (The mesentery is the flexible membrane that ties the gut in place, in case you never did Biology dissections when you were at school.) Alick Henrici found quite a few interesting Ascomycetes, a good day for it after recent rain.

Conservation, Nature Reserves

A Winter Task: Digging out Wet Woodland

Image

Digging out wet woodland in Gunnersbury Triangle, seen from the boardwalk bridge. The “carr” steadily silts up with mud, leaves and roots. Here the team is carefully preserving the rushes and gypsywort, removing mud to a spade’s depth. The mud will be graded to form a gentle transition from the deeper areas, which only dry out in midsummer, to the dry bank that’s covered in holly.