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buzzy



Joined: 04 Jan 2011
Posts: 3708
Location: In a small wood on the edge of the Huntingdonshire Wolds
PostPosted: Thu Oct 05, 17 8:12 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

The shredded bark/wood chips this was growing on was produced on the spot by local woodsmen, from their activities in the wood.

Henry

sgt.colon



Joined: 27 Jul 2009
Posts: 7380
Location: Just south of north.
PostPosted: Thu Oct 05, 17 8:49 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

That's a nice picture Buzzy. I love the contrast of colours.

Mistress Rose



Joined: 21 Jul 2011
Posts: 15539

PostPosted: Fri Oct 06, 17 7:44 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

That seems to be their preferred habitat Buzzy, but they must have travelled to your part of the world somehow, so must have come in that way in the past.

Improperly treated woodchip, shredded wood packaging and bark on timber are some of the worst offenders for transporting pests and diseases around the world. The Forestry Commission have treated at least one site to my knowledge where untreated shredded wood packaging brought in a nasty insect. Luckily it didn't move fast so they were able to eradicate it, but at the cost of a lot of trees in the area being felled, shredded and being hygienically burnt on site.

Slim



Joined: 05 Mar 2006
Posts: 6533
Location: New England (In the US of A)
PostPosted: Fri Oct 06, 17 11:11 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

I thought that the resistant nature of spores led to the cosmopolitan nature of many species of fungi and bacteria?

Was the species native to Australia, or just discovered there first, know what I mean?

Also, if it was native and spread to you, why not spores on a traveler instead of mycelia that need to be respiring actively in a substrate?

buzzy



Joined: 04 Jan 2011
Posts: 3708
Location: In a small wood on the edge of the Huntingdonshire Wolds
PostPosted: Fri Oct 06, 17 12:00 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

Slim wrote:
I thought that the resistant nature of spores led to the cosmopolitan nature of many species of fungi and bacteria?

Was the species native to Australia, or just discovered there first, know what I mean?

Also, if it was native and spread to you, why not spores on a traveler instead of mycelia that need to be respiring actively in a substrate?


It says on the internet that it is native to Australia, so it must be true

There must be dozens of ways for fungal spores to travel from the other side of the world, and as you say, they are generally believed to be resistant, so it is perhaps surprising that they are not all ubiquitous (if indeed that is the case ).

Henry

buzzy



Joined: 04 Jan 2011
Posts: 3708
Location: In a small wood on the edge of the Huntingdonshire Wolds
PostPosted: Fri Oct 06, 17 2:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

Yesterday we went to to meet a woodland craft group; I thought they were going to show us some woodland crafts in action, and we were going to show them some fungi. But I'd got the wrong end of the stick, and it was just us showing them fungi. It was a nice walk, though, and we did find around sixty species of fungi -

sgt,colon, LOOK AWAY NOW - neither of these pictures are pretty!

We found the Leopard Earthball (Scleroderma arealatum):





Also, slowly progressing along a dead branch, was this:




a very pale Tree Slug (Lehmannia marginata)

Henry

dpack



Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 45376
Location: yes
PostPosted: Fri Oct 06, 17 10:02 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

having lived in a wood i might call that a face slug

they are quite pretty as slugs go but they are a bit inclined to mistake whiskers for trees

not as sticky as the wee black chaps though:lol:

Mistress Rose



Joined: 21 Jul 2011
Posts: 15539

PostPosted: Sat Oct 07, 17 5:42 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

Interesting finds Henry. Pity you didn't get to try any of the crafts, but at least you hopefully taught them something.

We have been fungus surveying for the last couple of months with the less active group of our Volunteer Group, but none of us are very good at ID, so we get out Phillips and do our best. Manage to get a name for a few, but most remain a mystery. One of our group takes phots and sends them to a fungus expert, who sometimes gets quite exited about the less common ones.

dpack



Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 45376
Location: yes
PostPosted: Sat Oct 07, 17 3:21 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

imho there are quite a lot that are yet to be identified and described to science so in any given sample there could easily be a few with no names so far as well as rarities.

Mistress Rose



Joined: 21 Jul 2011
Posts: 15539

PostPosted: Sun Oct 08, 17 6:11 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

Some of the 'rarities' I think may only be rare because they are so inconspicuous that most people don't notice them. Others are easy to see, so probably don't turn up that often.

buzzy



Joined: 04 Jan 2011
Posts: 3708
Location: In a small wood on the edge of the Huntingdonshire Wolds
PostPosted: Thu Oct 12, 17 5:14 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

This week we enjoyed a good walk and found quite a lot of fungi, though none of them particularly photogenic or well positioned for photography. We heard Cetti's Warbler and Great Spotted Woodpecker calling. We also heard a Green Woodpecker; in fact we regularly hear one calling on our walks, but this time we actually saw one flying over a meadow.

In the absence of any pictures from the walk, here is one I recently downloaded from one of my wildlife cameras, of a Black Squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis). They have been in the area for a while, but this is the first time one has appeared on the wildlife camera.




Henry

dpack



Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 45376
Location: yes
PostPosted: Thu Oct 12, 17 5:53 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

nice squirrel snap, back in the 1960's there were melanistic reds in penarth that lived in the trees next to my grandparents place. iirc their forebears had been imported from the alps as "garden pets" to go with the alpine conifers. rich folk and unusual "pets" was quite a victorian thing, ummm.

the welsh ones were smaller than that one with distinctive ear tufts (like reds), i had a quick look for them on a visit a few years ago and although the trees were there they were only greys to be seen.

iirc there are quite a few melanistic populations of greys both in the uk and in their native eastern usa, some recon it is down to soot etc but they seem to be quite rural as well as urban so it might just be random rather than evolutionary.

Mistress Rose



Joined: 21 Jul 2011
Posts: 15539

PostPosted: Fri Oct 13, 17 6:39 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

My Canadian cousin talks of black squirrels coming to her garden. She is in the eastern part of Canada. I thought they were a distinct breed, but see that they are just a melanistic form of greys or fox squirrels. That must be a black form of the grey squirrel then Buzzy, as I don't think you have reds where you are do you? Good to get a picture of one.

Dpack, pity the reds/blacks have been ousted by the greys where your grandparents live. My grandparents moved to the Isle of Wight when they retired, so although I have never seen a red there, they are still the only ones on the Island thank goodness.

Slim



Joined: 05 Mar 2006
Posts: 6533
Location: New England (In the US of A)
PostPosted: Fri Oct 13, 17 10:59 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

Can confirm presence of melanistic grey squirrel in rural state
My cat used to chase one in the back yard at an earlier house

buzzy



Joined: 04 Jan 2011
Posts: 3708
Location: In a small wood on the edge of the Huntingdonshire Wolds
PostPosted: Wed Oct 25, 17 1:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

I didn't have a walk last week because I had a cold, and this week's walk was cancelled for a variety of reasons. But here is a picture of a Feathered Thorn (Colotois pennaria) which landed on the glass front door on Monday evening,




A male, with his splendid lady-seeking antennae!

Henry

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