We drove up into the Sutherland hills to the northwest of Golspie on Saturday, to Farlary Croft where the owner has opened part of his land to walkers such as ourselves to wander through a variety of different habitats. The heather is still in flower so the hills were at their best.
One of the sections available is across a part of the croft which is rough grazing for sheep, where the path has been made by digging down through the peat soil to the underlying rocky surface, and it was while we were making our way along this path that we spotted what looked like ripe rowan berries - they're at bottom left of the above picture.
The spot was nowhere near any rowans and a closer look proved that the orange-coloured blobs were small....
....fungi - the largest of these is about 10mm wide.
I can't find anything like this on the internet and have ended up with only one possibility, that they are a variety of....
....orange-peel fungus, above, a fungus which we've found before but growing in gravel by the side of a damp forestry track.
Look closely and there are seeds inside them. I'm almost sure I can see a stalk on the one in the top left hand corner and the red bits are skins. I would say they are Rowan berries either in vomit or washed-out faeces. Your first supposition was correct.
ReplyDeleteDerryck - I'm sure you're right! Yet well over 100m from the nearest trees and no sign of any similar 'deposit'! And what animal would go from the trees out into open moorland and be sick! Pine marten?
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