Day 119 - A Fungi Foray

Today I was booked on a Fungi Foray with the Eastern Moors Partnership so spent the morning at Birchen Edge (somewhere you'll have seen on my main blog if you read it!)

It was a damp, foggy start to the day but with the promise of sunshine.

This wasn't the best fungi day I've been on, and there wasn't a huge range of fungus but it was still an interesting three hours and I learned a few things and enjoyed my time outdoors.

Well, except for the midges! I've never experienced so many midges (and in the day time) and it seems I was irresistible to them. I've never been nibbled like this before...

Both arms (despite the fact I was wearing long sleeves all day!) and my neck and face are covered in red dots (they don't show up all that well in the photo) where I was bitten. The photo shows just a few! Oh well, they'll soon fade away!

Below is a variety of mushrooms we collected at the beginning of the session including blushers, brown roll rims, russulas, boletes and inkcaps. 

This is a cut in half earth ball. I didn't think to photograph the other side at the time as I see these often.

A nice cobweb, plus some birch polypore on the tree...

fly agaric...

Some views on top of Birchen Edge

The mushroom on the left, with the white stalk, is a russula of some sort but I've already forgotten what the other one was!

Other fungus found included grisettes, tawny grisettes, dung roundhead and several more I've forgotten - I should have made a list!

At home, the buddleia was being appreciated by quite a lot of butterflies again. I took this photo of a red admiral. It turned upside down just as I was focusing!