Two weeks, because it has been fairly quiet recently. The number of fungi making an appearance has dropped off recently largely because the weather has been quite dry again. There was a big surge after the rains at the beginning of October but now there are mainly lots of old Brown Roll rims many of which are supporting a white mould. ( A fungus living on a fungus). I have seen a few new ones including some Amanita citrina, and in the same family some Fly Agarics, Amanita muscaria and a few Tawny Grisettes, Amanita fulva which is supposed to be edible but I keep away from all the Amanita genus. I continue to update my page on the fungi, with several recent additions. Do have a look at  it.

The trees are now showing signs of Autumn colours, the Silver Birches do not make much of a display and steadily drop their yellow leaves over a long period. The one tree that I do have that makes a good display is the Beech and it is just starting to produce its golden to orange leaves. Oak is not that attractive often producing brown leaves and some trees hold onto their dead leaves right through the winter, as do some of the Beech trees.

This is known as Marcescence and is described as the withering and persistence of plant organs that normally are shed, and is a term most commonly applied to plant leaves. The underlying physiological mechanism is that trees transfer water and sap from the roots to the leaves through their vascular cells, but in some trees as autumn begins, the veins carrying the sap slowly close until a layer of cells called the abscssion   layer completely closes off the vein allowing the tree to rid itself of the leaf.] Leaf marcescence is most often seen on juvenile plants and may disappear as the tree matures.

In terms of wildlife (fauna) I did see a couple of Roe Deer and one Fallow Deer when I had a wander round the wood some days ago, but they also saw me and so did not stay around long, there were quite a lot of deer droppings on the far side of the wood so I suspect they are spending a lot of time in our wood at the moment. Not much time near my hide though.

Birds have been standard fair, Buzzards regularly and a possible Sparrowhawk which just dashed about briefly and then was not seen again. I have taken a selection of photographs of some of the regulars recently as the light has been quite conducive.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

 

The one ‘special’ has been a Goldcrest. I rec all having seen a Goldcrest in the woods some years ago, but it was not in our area of the woods. So this is a first for our patch, It was quite obliging and hopped about, pecking at stuff ( no doubt tiny insects) on a bit of Gorse and a young Silver Birch. It only stayed around for a minute or so and then was not seen again but I did get a couple of OK photos.

So that is it for this round up.