Autumn on Duddon Moss

 The Duddon Mosses have been well visited this year as a local escape into nature from Covid19 and for that reason the bracken has not overwhelmed the paths.  Now all is quiet as people walk elsewhere and only the birds were in residence as we walked the paths and boardwalk.

One of the joys of this time of year are the variety of fungi

such as these common earthballs nestling in the grass.  I love this passage in my old (1978) Observer's Book of Mushrooms and Toadstools .  "This fungus is unwholesome and should not be eaten; nevertheless as it somewhat resembles the truffle (in looks, not taste) it is sometimes used by unscrupulous restaurants in conjunction with the real thing" and then it finishes off with the zinger "but this happens mainly on the Continent as Truffles are little used in this country" . What were we eating in 1978 that may be thought of as continental?   Woman and Home tells me it was cheese fondue and quiche lorraine.  Heady days.

My fungi knowledge is scant but nevertheless I can admire their shapes, sizes and colours. This hat shape I think is a type of Cavalier

And a perfect round

From a distance this looked like a potato lying by the path.  I think it might be a Parasitic Bolete (Boletus parasiticus) and is parasitic on Earthballs (seen in the first photo) although it is now conjectured that they simply consume dying earthballs.  If my observation is correct it is an uncommon find.

Not looking in the best of health.

So lots of fungi but one I did not see was the instantly recognisable Fly Algaric which is very strange as usually there are a lot of them here. 2018 was an especially fruitful year as can be seen in my post at the time here

Leaving behind the paths we wandered across the boardwalk to admire

the Bog Asphodel whose other name is the Lancashire Asphodel and Lancashire is what this part of the country used to be until governmental edict turned it into Cumbria. The plant is in fruit

and they give wonderful colour to the green moss.  As we took the path to leave through the

wood a Speckled Wood butterfly flew past to gently land and open its wings to take in the warmth of the sun

and a young oak glowed with autumn colour.
 

 

 

 

 

Fabulous Fungi

It was forecast that this year's weather pattern, damp with a long hot dry summer, would produce a bumper crop of fungi and how right they were.  I have never seen as many fruiting at the same time and they lined faint paths that run through Angerton Moss, a peatland habitat.

One that is always easy to recognise, Fly Agaric, but these were the biggest I've ever seen they must have measured 8 inches across and looking them up in the fungus guide it says they can grow from 6-20cm so these

must be at their maximum size.

Here is one in decay looking like a mound of couscous,  a small and shiny new one can be seen peeping though under the grass on the left

There were hundreds of these, Collybia cirrhata, which grow out of dead black fungi. They varied in size from little specks to these and also varied in

numbers growing together. Other fungi grew among the grass but I could not identify them

apart from being intrigued by their curious shape, small

and large.

Some looked familiar, this possibly is a species of mycena.

I couldn't resist taking a picture of these crab apples in the water just because they could be like my blog name - a raft of apples (although the title is taken from a poem)

Apples, like the fungi, are having a good year in 2018 although crab apples and the fungi I have photographed are not recommended for eating.   In praise of the crab apple I did once make a rather tasty white wine from them but its tastiness faded with age. Not a wine for laying down in ones imaginary cellar.

Duddon Dawdle

The Osteospurnum making the most of yesterday's afternoon sunshine as was the little wasp.

The roads and fields are showing the effect of so much rain over this last fortnight.  We passed this field on the way to walk through the Duddon Mosses. And boy were the mosses wet. I am doing flat walks at the moment to build my leg up after its break and was using my new walking stick while boasting about its usefulness in gauging the depth of water and so keeping my feet dry.  No sooner were the words out of my mouth than my leg started to sink.  I will have to add this move to my physiotherapy exercises, pulling leg out of gloopy peat.

The day was warm and a lone male black darter dragonfly flitted along the path while down below 

a fox moth caterpillar was taking its ease in the grass, waiting for its photo opportunity. Next year this little fellow will metamorphose into this:

 This photo from the blog Wild Wings and Wanderings

 But in the meantime the fox moth caterpillar's favourite food,

heather, was flowering along the path under the birch trees where something had taken a liking to

a Fly Agaric and chomped half.  I wonder what fancied a poisonous fungi with a powerful hallucinogen?

ABC Wednesday - Xylogenous

We have reached the tricky letter X for this week's ABC Wednesday so its a browse through the short dictionary entry, and the result - Xylogenous, a biological term for growing on wood.   The fungi growing on this tree is the wonderfully named Dryad's Saddle, named after those mythical tree nymphs the Dryads, who it would seem were just the right size to ride one of these.   The Dryad's Saddle (Polyporus squamosus) is edible but not recommended when it gets to this size.  As the guide says soft at first then tough.  It tiers on trunks of living or dead trees, especially elm or sycamore.

The other grower on wood, lichen, on a fence pole pictured on a snowy day.  A long hard winter like the one that is now long behind us is sometimes called a Blackthorn Winter

and every branch of this Blackthorn (Prunus spinosa) bush if not covered with moss is covered with the shrubby Ramalina farinacea lichen.  It must be a very old bush but is always laden with sloe berries in autumn. In fact my last lot of Sloe Gin was made from this tree, and the end result was eXcellent.

eXit to ABC Wednesday where there are lots more words starting with X

Black Combe Walk

After a week of rain Sunday arrived with clear blue skies. We toddled out to take a walk to the top of Black Combe. The bracken is now all golden brown
and Moorgill Beck bubbled and gurgled in the lower reaches. A couple of raptors glided in the sky while nervous stonechats called 'tscak tscak'.
There were lots of wax-caps at our feet. I think these yellow ones are the Golden Wax-cap
and this is the Slimy Wax-cap. These particular fungi are an indicator of ancient grasslands and like moss and short grass. The sheep have been on these uplands for many centuries keeping the grass nice and short.
The trig point on the top had been newly painted a brilliant white. The Remembrance Day crosses had been placed at the bottom and a couple of poppies on the top in memory of those who no longer walk the Lakeland hills.

The breeze on the top was chilly but the sea below was still and the views were clear. The mountain ranges to the north, the Isle of Man and the Calf of Man to the west and Blackpool tower to the south. Looking towards the tower with binoculars The Man Who Knows said he could see the Big Dipper as well. Perhaps he could.

Path down from Black Combe foreground; In the sea - Barrow and end of Walney Island, top, with Hodbarrow Lagoon, lower left.

Returning on the lane down towards Whicham church here on this November day was a Foxglove. The hedge and all around was bare but this was budding and flowering. The Autumn days have been warm, almost spring like, so perhaps this mysterious flower had been enticed into life by the temperature.
Further along the lane the hedge's tops had been cut but a few branches were budding and also appearing, new leaves.

So perhaps the end of Thomas Hood's poem 'No' is not quite true for this month.

"...No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees
No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds
November"

Sloe Walk

Had a lovely walk in the Rusland Valley yesterday with the additional treat of coming across this blackthorn bush which was laded with sloes. It looks a very old bush as it is covered with moss and abundant grey lichen, which I think is the shrubby Ramalina farinacea. The lichen indicates good air quality round here and as it is near a place called Windy Hall this certainly indicates a lot of fresh air. I don't think last year was a good year for sloes as the ones we can across were poor specimens. This year they are plump. Plastic bag out and we gathered about a pound, which left loads left on the tree for anyone else with a desire to make Sloe Gin.

The temperature this week can only be described a balmy, a wonderfully warm autumn. (This time last year it had snowed). The air was still and the breeze crackled the dry leaves on the trees as we walk through the woods. The birds sang and the sparse late flowers felt as though they were wishing us goodbye for the year.
A profusion of Scarlet Hood (Hygrophorus coccineus) greeted us as we walked through the fields towards the end of the walk. These fungi like to grow in grass and the cap fades to yellow as it ages. You can just see the yellow edges on these ones.
What of the sloes we picked. Today I bought a bottle of gin, pricked the juicy sloes, put them in the gin and added the sugar. Now I turn the bottle every day and wait. I knew someone who used to put the bottle under her bed and the last thing she did before she went to bed was turn it. One way of remembering to keep turning the bottle.

Ferns and Fungi

The bracken fades in a golden glory and soon the paths will be revealed once more.

A damp summer and a warm September has brought the rather beautiful Fly Agaric (Amanita muscaria) out in profusion. Does it look like a lethal type of pizza that someone has taken a slice? I noticed my field guide says "though poisonous it is doubtful it would cause the death of a healthy person". The choice of the word doubtful is gloriously open ended.
Now this, of which I only saw one, is I think, Amanita aspera, which likes frondose woods and as you can tell from the first image that is where I was walking.