It's getting towards the time of year when excitement on our walks is more difficult to find as short days, frosts and rain discourage wildlife, to the extent that, on a walk through Dunrobin Woods this morning, a piece of satsuma rind was the most remarkable find until, that is, we approached....
....Harriet's statue, around which, in the past, we have found some good fungi. It isn't unusual to have 'hot spots' which seem to suit fungi - I can think of several others - but what we found today surpassed all expectations, starting....
....with several little explosions of hair ice and....
....what is either white coral or candlesnuff fungus. But these were the mere hors d'oeuvres, for within a radius of ten metres of the statue we came across....
....green fungi and....
....orange fungi and....
....several miniature gardens of mixed fungi.
This cornucopia of species was growing on a number of stumps and logs like this, of one particular tree species, one which was obviously felled and left to rot some time ago. Finding so many may also have been influenced by my expectation that this spot was a good one, so I looked more closely than elsewhere.
I like the open nature of the woodland in your recent walks and glad to see oak as the doninant species. The ponticum, no doubt an escapee from the castle gardens, is more invasive around the Duchess's memorial, though the woodland is clearly mannaged. Has it completely taken over the understory in that locality? Is a clearance effort in hand?
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