Magic mushrooms

Actually I have very little idea of the identity of any of these fungi except the obvious Fly Agarics above. But I've never see so many or such a variety in one walk as I did this week!

Slugs love those trippy mushrooms

Some look utterly disgusting...

and some more appealing:

Is it a fungus or a pancake?

Some were HUGE

(Bad pic showing pores not gills on the underside)

and some were weeeeeeny:

And they came in a variety of colours:

Pink

Orange

Pale yellow

Brown

different Brown

WHITE

I do love autumn!

Feeling fruity

I know, I know - my phenology log was last year. But LOOK AT THOSE PLUMS!

You've got to admire a man's plums when they're that juicy ;-)

And his apples...

:-)

Because bluebells

I know my phenology blog was last year ... but damn, I have never seen so many bluebells!

Phenology - January

"January brings the snow;

Makes our feet and fingers glow."

Well, I am totally gutted. I was convinced I'd have a Snow Photo for January's roundup. The whole of the USA is buried in snowdrifts, as far as I can tell from the news. Northern Ireland is freezing to death and has had all the water cut off. Scotland is impassable ... even more so than usual. Twenty minutes due west of where I sit, in the same goddamn county, they are having Snow Days off school and happy snowball fights. What have I got? Nothing. Not a flake.

Well, there's some ice on the ponds:

Note the glorious sunshine.

What is going on? This is the second winter in a row that hasn't really happened. And it's not just been (relatively) warm, it's been sunny a lot of days - unheard of! I'll be out in my bikini soon, I tell you...

I've even seen the odd bold hazel catkin, which aren't supposed to be out for another month.

These are male catkins - "lambs' tails"

More conventional at this time of year ... well, remember those ivy flowers in October? They fruit in winter:

Which is why of course they are contrasted with holly berries in the carol The Holly and the Ivy. While certainly this song has a strong Christian message (the holly's features are all tied symbolically to the Passion of Christ), it also carries an older (and deeply misogynist) theme - holly is considered 'masculine' and superior in every way, whilst ivy is 'feminine' and basically crap.  Even birds won't eat her poisonous berries, it's claimed, except owls (which are Creatures of the Night).

Holly and his merry men, they dance and they sing,

Ivy and her maidens, they weep and they wring.

Nay, ivy, nay, it shall not be I wis;

Let holly have the mastery, as the manner is.

Here's another suspiciously feminine feature that's much more noticeable in the depths of winter: the Witches' Brooms you find on some trees:

Argh! Proof that witches have been flying overhead!

These balls of twiggy growth are the plant's reaction to stress (viruses, fungi, parasites etc) and are actually harmless to the tree, as well as providing miniature habitat for a lot of beasties.

One plant you will see still in glorious flower in January is the gorse:

There's a folk saying that "When gorse is out of bloom, kissing is out of season" - i.e. Never!

And the other January flower is of course the wonderful, magical snowdrop. As soon as last year's plants die off and everything looks dead, new snowdrop shoots spring from the cold earth. The Wheel of the Year never stops turning...

Which brings me, in my phenology log, full circle :-)

Phenology - December

FIRST FROST!!

Well good grief, we are getting a proper winter at last.

Not that I am a fan of cold. I'm not really a fan of December at all. Carols laud the holly and the ivy because there is barely any other foliage left to notice:

As we head toward the dark of the Winter Solstice the only compensating features of natural interest are to be found above the earth, not on it. There are sometimes wonderful long winter twilights, where the sky stays blue over a greeny-brown streak of atmospheric pollution at the horizon, and the lacy black silhouettes of trees are etched against the light.

I love those. Tree anatomy, clothed for so long by foliage, is wonderfully striking when bared to view like that.

And sometimes, even more rarely, there are magnificent dawns:

But damn, I hate the mud.

Phenology - November

Dull November brings the blast,
Then the leaves go whirling past.

Well, I've really got to apologise for November here, folks. Whilst other places in the world were suffering 8ft of snow, flash floods, and hailstones the size of golfballs this month, here in Land of Mud we got mostly this:

Option 1: dank

And this:

Option 2: dull

It's actually been unseasonably mild in my opinion (I was expecting to capture the first frost of winter, but no - we've not even had that). Just dreary. The daylight is fading by 3pm and we're not even near the solstice! 

But the one good thing about November is that on that rare day when it's not cloudy for once, and the light comes in low and gold from a dying sun ... everything shines like a jewel. 

The grey squirrels come out in packs, stuffing their little faces:

The hawthorn berries on the leafless bushes look like Xmas decorations:

And the warm earth breathes Hammer-Horror-style ground mist into the chill air:

The zombies are coming! Run!!

It almost makes the rest of the month worthwhile :-)

Phenology - October

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness - John Keats: To Autumn

Yes, October is the month that we start getting morning mists again. Leaves begin to fall in earnest: autumn is undeniably here.

So too falls the ripened beech mast, which in medieval times was a vital source of food for the pigs that would be slaughtered in November and keep the populace alive through winter. No one does anything with beech-mast these days.

And of course this is the season for collecting conkers!

Every year on the second Sunday in October, the World Conker Championships is held in Northamptonshire, but the sport actually goes back before the introduction of horse chestnuts to England (around the 1600s), when it used to be played with hazel nuts and snail shells.

The glossy colour of a fresh conker is one of my favourite things in the world

Other things start to appear mysteriously in October - spiders are suddenly all over the place:

Including inside the house!

And so are the fruiting bodies of many fungi:

Shaggy ink cap

Common ink cap - poisonous IF TAKEN WITH ALCOHOL

I was was delighted when I learned that genetically speaking, mushrooms are closer to humans than they are to plants!

Talking of plants, it's time for them to put on their autumnal bling:

Actually, this year October has been extraordinarily mild - we had record-breaking high temperatures on Hallowe'en! What that means, perversely, is that the autumnal colouration has been a little drab. For widespread fierce colours you need sunny days followed by cold still nights.

But some plants still try their best:

The unseasonably warm weather means that there are still wasps around. In fact Mr Ashbless got stung by one! 

The wasps are glutting themselves on the ivy flowers - something I'd never noticed until this year