Bog Beacon!

Apparently these little fellas are quite unusual.  Widespread, but not common.  They are Bog Beacons, (Mitula paludosa), what a fantastic name!  They are actually much more orange than this, but boy, do they shine out of the very wet leaf litter!

They are very fussy about there habitat, but this seems to be ideal, as there were tons of them!

Growing from submerged, deciduous leaf litter in carr woodland.

A new favourite!

Ooops!

Ok, so it's been a while, I must have been busy!  Well, I have I guess.  I did eventually manage to get a plant survey done on the hill.  Really quite interesting actually, but will be going back to look again as spring brings in more variety and developments.  I've also been working really hard on finding out about badgers, and how much of a problem they are going to be with fencing etc.  The amount of paths they have crisscrossing the hill is incredible, and I don't want to be installing a hundred badger gates.  Also the fencing near the main sett needs replacing so I needed to find out about legalities of digging near setts.  Apparently, if you are caught near a badger sett with spade you are assumed to be badger digging and will be prosecuted as such!  Licences to carry outs works near badger setts are recommended!


Aside from that, we have started work on our practical project at uni.  We have a footpath to restore.  A lot of clearance work, the replacement of four gates and a footbridge to rebuild!  It's a great project, but after all the rain we've had the site is an absolute quagmire!  Yesterday, even though it wasn't raining, I wore waterproofs for mud limitation, I was still filthy and had condensation all up inside them! Not very pleasant.  Tomorrow, we are back on site and the weather is meant to be sunny and fairly warm, so I'm going to go with spare trousers instead!  No photos yet, I'll do a before and after of the entire project when we've finished.

Instead, here's a new fungus for me that I found at the footpath site during a break.  It's an Earthfan, a member of the Thelephora species. I've not found one before, so nice find for me. Sorry, second picture is a little blurry!

Turquoise Elfcup

I was just looking over some photos I took when I was out looking for fungi recently.  And came across these two;

At the time, I didn't know what was causing the blue/green staining in the decaying wood, but it was obviously not man made.

Having done a little research, it appears to be caused by a fungus called Chlorociboria aeruginosa or Turquoise Elfcup.  



Now you may remember that I've posted about Scarlet Elfcup in the past.  They are very common this time of year, but the turquoise ones are harder to spot and are usually around in autumn.  I've certainly never seen them, but I am happy to have found evidence of the unusual fungus!

Mixed Feelings

I did end up going out the day of my last post.  It was a bit hair raising in the woods.  The wind was howling.  When I got home I logged onto the woodland for sale website to get the phone number for the North Wales agent.  I was going to give him a call and discuss a deposit for the woodland with him.  Sadly when I got onto the website it appears that someone else has beaten me to it.  Gutted to say the least, I had big plans for that place!  It's certainly knocked me back a bit.  But I have re-centred my attention on some land that I was looking at a couple of years ago.  The guy wanted to much for it, but he's not sold, so maybe there's a chance that I could get it cheaper.  Not quite the woodland of my dreams, but cheaper and still with potential.

Went out looking for edible mushrooms today.  Found a few Scarlet Elfcaps and a few Jelly Ears, but not the Velvet Shanks I had been hoping for.  Not ones that were worth eating anyway.  Lots of fungi still to find though, unbelievable that people think the season is over by winter.  Anyway I was going to attempt a wild mushroom chutney, but without the Velvet Shanks it wouldn't have been right with just ears and elfcaps!  So I made it with plain old button mushrooms instead.  If it's nice, I'll make it with oyster mushrooms when mine are ready.

We did map and compass work last week with Uni.  That was pretty cool, they dragged us all over the hills surrounding Plynlimon.  According to the fitbit I walked 24,746 steps and climbed 139 floors!  We're going to start looking at our footpath project tomorrow, so that should be quite interesting.

I'll leave you with some Turkey Tails (Trametes versicolor).  They are a rather pretty bracket fungus and are plentiful at the moment.

Kombucha - The Immortal Health Elixir!

I have a keen interest in Fungi, that should be obvious to you by now!  I am also investigating the possibility of self sufficiency (as self sufficient as sensibly possible, anyway), and love foraging etc.  I'm not hugely into alternative medicine, but I do like the idea, doctors are all to keen to hand out drugs, quite often unnecessarily.  I like the idea of a little self help.  OH has introduced me to Kombucha.  He used to have some years ago and use it on a regular basis.  So what is Kombucha?

Kombucha is an ancient Chinese tea, which dates back over 2000 years!  It is a sweet tea which has been fermented by a symbiotic bacteria and yeast colony.  Although it looks rather strange, it is said to have some incredible health benefits.  Russian scientists have claimed it appears to be why they have such low cancer rates in some areas of the country.  It is also good for the digestive system and joints, helping to improve arthritis.   The Chinese obviously hold it in high regard, as that is where the name Immortal Health Elixir comes from!

As the colony matures it splits off new pieces called 'scobys', these can then be separated to form new beverages.  The tradition is to give them away to someone new, but I have heard that you can make face packs from them! Anyway, we recently found a local lady, through the power of Facebook, who had some Kombucha scobys to give away, and we made the trip over to meet her.  She's a lovely lady, working hard on her own self sufficiency and permaculture model, and it was very interesting to meet her.  We collected a scoby from her and now have our own Kombucha tea brewing.  It will need a few days before it is ready, but I am looking forward to trying it.  

For more information about Kombucha, have a look here.

Woodland Revisted

After my Biology exam on Tuesday, I rewarded myself with a walk in the woodland that i so covert.  It is such a beautiful place, there is an old slate quarry with a proper little dingly dell at the foot.  It's such a surreal place, one where I could sit for hours just gazing upon the lichens and moss that grows there.

As yet, I don't know much about moss and lichen, only that lichen is such a complicated symbiotic relationship between fungi and algae!  I am getting pretty good with identification of fungus now, but I don't even know where to start with lichen!  I have invested in a book, but it in itself is very complicated, although supposedly a very good guide!


Here are some of the moss and lichen I found in my little retreat

I also found a wonderful patch of bilberries, which I've already made into Bilberry and Rowan jelly in my master plan for self sufficiency (in my head anyway)!  Once my exams are over, I really must crack on with packing up the house, and preparing it to sell.  My dream will never become a reality if I just sit there in the dell dreaming! And once it has happened, I can sit there all I like!

Hafod Estate, Fungi and Fossils

So I was definitely feeling the need to get out after Christmas.  Since finishing uni on the 17th, I hadn't been out much. It had all been Christmas prep, shopping in Shrewsbury, food shopping, and tidying up at home.  I start to get cabin fever easily.  So boxing day me and OH ended up going for a walk at Hafod Estate, near Cywmystwyth.  Having researched the estate quite heavily for a uni assignment, it was bitter sweet returning there.  A man named Thomas Johnes took over the estate, in the late 1700's with a powerful vision, of 'picturesque landscape'.  He spent a vast fortune taming the wild, Welsh landscape and building a beautiful mansion. 

The mansion was later demolished, quite some time after the death of Johnes, but it just seems so wrong after the time and effort he put into the site.  The estate, somewhat smaller than it was originally, is now owned by National Resources Wales who are, along with the Hafod Trust making attempts to restore some of the grandeur.  There are beautiful walks around the grounds and forestry.  I could write an entire series of blog posts on Hafod, but I won't just now.  

A recent Pine Marten reintroduction project, handled by Vincent Wildlife Trust, has seen several pine martens released at Hafod, which appear to be doing well there.  I've not been lucky enough to spot one yet but hope to one day.  Most of what we focused on was fungi.  An old fallen tree provided us with a plethora of exciting finds.  But my favourite has to have been the Winter Polypore, a first for me and a very special mushroom.

The Winter Polypore (Polyporus brumalis) is one of the few true mushrooms, aside from Boletes, that have pores beneath their caps instead of gills. They grow late in the season, hence the common name winter polypore, and the scientific name translating to 'having many pores of winter'.  

They are common throughout Britain and Ireland, they are saprobic, meaning they grow on dead wood, fallen branches of deciduous trees, most commonly beech. They can vary in size from 2 to 8 cm across the cap, and the crinkled nature of this one is not strictly typical.  They are tough and rubbery and although not poisonous, are considered inedible.


I have the great excuse that, whenever I am out and about, that I am researching and revising for my course.  I am studying conservation and it covers a vast subject area.  Yesterday we headed out to Llandrindod Wells to look for fossils and revise my Geology for an upcoming exam in January.  We were lucky enough to find a fair few Trilobites, none quite perfect, but pretty awesome anyway.  This little fella is one of my favourite finds.




And of course, I can't go anywhere without stumbling across fungi! So here is a little icy Snowy Waxcap that I was happy to find.  I won't go into waxcaps right now, that's a whole series of posts too, and I will definitely return to them in the future!