New Year 2023
Here’s wishing everyone a joyful and peaceful New Year for 2023.
Blog
Merry Christmas 2022
A very Merry Christmas 2022
Just wanted to wish everyone who has visited the website over the past year, a very Merry Christmas!
It feels like the first full year for a while when we haven’t had to think about the Covid pandemic too much. So, I hope this is true for you and yours, and that you’ve managed to remain healthy throughout the year.
Sunset, Moonset
Sunset-moonset 2022
Looking up in the Breamish Valley never fails to reward: herons, geese, scintillating sunsets. What’s not to enjoy? And this time of the year, with the late autumn crispness, the December ‘cold moon’ is stunning. Have you taken the time to look up?
Black Bulgar
Black bulgar (Bulgaria inquinans)
Other names: black jelly drops
When to see: October-March (but can be found all year round)
A small, leathery cup-fungus commonly found in clusters on fallen branches/dead trees – particularly oak and beech. Some say they look like liquorice drops (1) or Pontefract cakes (2).
Trooping Funnel
Trooping Funnel (Infundibulicybe geotropa)
Other names: monk’s head; giant funnel, rickstone funnel cap
When to see: September-December
This common mushroom, with a typical mushroom smell, is found in mixed woodland, often in clearings. They are often found standing in ‘troops’ (straight lines/ranks or arcs) or in rings.
Porcelain Fungus
Porcelain fungus (Oudemansiella mucida)
Other names: slimy beech tuft, poached egg fungus
When to see: July-October
These delicate, semi-translucent white-ivory mushrooms are typically found on beech wood: dead trunks, fallen branches or dead branches on living beech trees. They are, therefore, saprophytes, i.e., obtaining their nourishment from dead or decaying organic matter.
The Smallest Room
A very old joke…
– What’s the smallest room in the world?
– A mushroom!
But what is a mushroom?
Mushrooms are neither plants (kingdom Plantae) nor animals (kingdom Animalia). They are fungi. What we typically recognise as a mushroom is the fruiting body of certain types of fungus. Mushrooms “live on land, in the water, in the air, and even in and on plants and animals. They vary widely in size and form, from the microscopically small to the largest organisms on Earth (at several square miles large)” (Keating, 2017). However, we commonly recognise them when they form above ground (e.g., on soil, in leaf litter, within blankets of moss) or on their food source (e.g., fallen tree branches, trunks of living trees).
Back Adder II
Branton’s Back Adder II
One week on from seeing my first adder of the 2022 season, I’ve spotted a couple of others. They’re pretty much in the same spot along the south-facing bank close to the entrance to the Branton Lakes Nature Reserve.
Back Adder
Back Adder Feb 2022
Ah…it’s always a sign that Spring is just around the corner – when the adders come back. Seeing your first adder of the season means that Spring is just around the corner. And yesterday (27 Feb 2022), I did indeed see my first – just the one, and here it is:
Mushrooms in the Valley
WARNING: Unless you are 100% confident that you know what you are doing, NEVER EAT mushrooms – many are poisonous or, if not poisonous, can cause severe upset stomachs, etc. Look but don’t eat!
Animal, vegetable or mineral?
You’ve probably played it before. It’s often along the lines of ’20 Questions’, in which someone thinks of an item, an object, a person, and so on. Others then have 20 attempts to ask questions in order to determine the chosen thing – but they can only ask questions that can be answered with either ‘yes’ or ‘no’. To narrow it down, early on someone will typically ask one of the three major category questions: ‘Is it an animal?’, ‘Is it a vegetable?’, ‘Is it a mineral?’ This seems to cover all the bases with regard to how we conceive of the world/universe – everything’s either an animal, a vegetable (presumably meaning a plant) or a mineral. This is fine for a parlour game but is everything actually an animal, a mineral or a plant?