I didn’t even bother to struggle round the Fungus Foray in the afternoon, as it was obvious from the dry weather of the last month that there wouldn’t be any mushrooms to speak of. So I wandered along to say hello to whoever came along, and perhaps see some other wildlife.

Sure enough I met Alick Henrici, the indefatigable mycologist; he leads fungal forays in every county, even the Grampian Fungus Group, so he gets about a bit away from his home patch in Surrey, especially Kew Gardens. He said there was nothing to see, barring a few certainties like Phoma hedericola (Hedera=Ivy) which forms small dried-out looking patches on “almost every Ivy leaf”.

Around the corner, as he had said, some children and their mothers were thoroughly enjoying pond-dipping. Most of the summer animals were nowhere to be seen – not a newt anywhere, hardly a waterflea – but I saw some Pond Skaters, a Water Boatman, a few tiny damselfly nymphs, a Hoglouse or two, and a couple of plump dragonfly nymphs.

A weird, soft screeching noise was coming from a small oak above the pond. It wasn’t quite the harsh screech of a jay, and if it was a crow it had a seriously odd high voice. I climbed up to have a look. A grey squirrel was the source. It was alone so it wasn’t clear why it was calling.

On the steps over the mound are some wooden posts to keep the uprights in place. And peeping through the wire netting on the mossy top of one of these posts was a teeny tiny clump of a yellow Ascomycete fungus, the ‘Golden Spindles’ toadstool, Clavulinopsis fusiformis. The holes in the netting are about a centimetre across.