Showing posts with label Fungi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fungi. Show all posts

Monday, 27 March 2017

Blackthorn, bluebells and buzzards...


Another spring is making its presence felt in Comfort's Wood and Monday 27th of March 2017 turned out to be blessed with cloudless blue skies and warm temperatures. Time to dust off the camera and see what can be discovered on this one particular early spring day...

The surviving ash trees are flowering now



The blackthorn is looking great too

The first beeflies of the year are enjoying the wood anemonies



And there are plenty of them this year. It really does look stunning in the woods right now...










They are also attracting other insects to nectar...

This is a tiny hoverfly
The bluebells are about to burst into bloom




The primroses are already in full flower

For a lot of the time I spent walking around the woods today, I could hear the constant calling of buzzards from high above. This won't be of interest to you but I only had the macro lens on this day. The macro is for real close-up work and so there was no way I would be able to get even a half decent photograph of the buzzards who were a good 200 feet above me. Even so, I wanted to record the fact that they were there and so pointed the camera skywards and hoped. This was the result. Not good but at least I have a record of them being there to share...






I couldn't resist trying to snatch a picture of this robin either...




Back on the ground, I spotted this fungi along one of the rides...





There are plenty of celandine in flower too

A comma butterfly sunning itself
Cuckoo-flower

The cuckoo-flower seems sparse this year compared to others, but even so, there is enough to attract one of my favourite springtime butterflies...

An orange-tip butterfly (male)


It also attracted this large white butterfly
Little violets are flowering right now


The hazel is just starting to come into leaf and quite a few insects seem to find it attractive...


I shall be expecting to see the delightful, red leaf-roller weevils any day now. Meantime, and I think this was my favourite find of the day by a country mile; I discovered this bright blue weevil...

A Blue Weevil (Byctiscus betulae)

And that is about all. Not bad for a couple of hours wandering the woods...

Saturday, 29 November 2014

Late November in the woods...

November 28th and 29th 2014 both turned out to be very nice weather days and ideal for me to get out and about in Comfort's Wood to see what, if anything, was happening. There's always something new to discover actually and even late November had plenty to hold my interest...



There are still plenty of fungi around in the woods. These little fruiting bodies were on one of the entrance gates.


Click any photo for a larger view on black


I'm sure local folk who walk these woods will know what I mean if I say that these ones were in 'the dip'. For everyone else, they were at the bottom of the big trees at the top of the little climb, after crossing the bridge over the stream.



There are still a few late bugs to be seen if you look hard enough and I came across this Green Shieldbug  on some bramble stalks...






Under some fallen wood I spotted a ground beetle that had been attacked by fungi...




A different type of fungi again now-this one seems to be attacking this dried rose hip...




Whilst I was looking at trees for signs of life, I discovered this strange looking insect...


This is a flightless, female moth. Possibly a winter moth? The females have no wings and their sole purpose in life seems to be the ability to climb somewhere high enough to spread their pheromones to attract a mate, then lay eggs that will emerge the following spring.




Back to fungi again; at least, I think this must be fungi? It was present in quite large amounts (this one is about golf-ball size) and had affected several plants...




Then under a fallen leaf I found this moth caterpillar. Not too sure on the identity of this one but it could be a Straw Dot moth larvae.




One more fungi to end this update then and I think this might be ear fungus of some kind, but I am no expert on these, so don't bet your house on it...


Friday, 3 October 2014

Autumn is on the way in Comfort's Wood...

Today, October 3rd 2014 I chose an early visit to the woods. In fact it was just prior to 7am and the light was still struggling to improve from dawn and the sun had yet to put in an appearance...

                      







By the time i returned at around 2pm things had improved a little and so I took some more pictures...

















And then I watched the clouds roll by for a while..




Back at ground level, I am starting to find some fungi now...
























These are some of the logs left over from the coppicing that have now started to be reclaimed by nature...











That's about all for this update but I have also updated the wildlife page with some more images...