October fungi - Honey Waxcap

The Honey Waxcap (Hygrocybe reidii) has started appearing in the last week both here and on other sites. This photo is of a fairly contorted fruitbody but shows off the distinctive gills nicely.

October Fungi - Crimson Waxcap

Last year one field in New Grove Meadows was covered in a carpet of Crimson Waxcaps - hundreds of them. This year I saw one a couple of days ago and one today. It was a rather beautiful example of this striking waxcap so I took a photo.

October fungi - Blue Roundhead

This was found by a neighbour in his garden. I am confident it is either the Blue Roundhead or the Verdigris Roundhead and probably the former. A spore print is being taken and that may help decide for certain. Edit: It does - it's a Blue Roundhead

October fungi - Dewdrop Mottlegill

There is a group of attractive Dewdrop Mottlegills (Panaeolus acuminatus) in the East Field at the moment. The Mottlegills are essentially dung fungi so presumably these are growing on some wild animal dung as the sheep have not been in that field since February.

New Species - Dark Crazed Cap

This was found after the foray so I think we missed it at the time. I come across the Crazed Cap (Dermoloma cuneifolium) reasonably often on unimproved fungi-rich grassland but this is the first time I have seen this much less common fungi, the Dark Crazed Cap (Dermoloma pseudocuneifolium).

New Species - Ivory Bonnet (Mycena flavoalba)

Also found at the foray here was the Ivory Bonnet (Mycena flavoalba). This is a beautiful delicate little fungi to which my photo does not do justice.

New Species - Yellow Foot Waxcap

The fungi foray here at The Beeches on Saturday turned up a new waxcap for the list here - the Yellow Foot Waxcap (Hygrocybe flavipes). It has the dual attractions of being easy to identify (due to its yellow base of the stem when plucked) and having beautiful grey gills with lots of interconnecting veins. I note that my photo shows neither of these features!

October Fungi - Waxcaps from a lawn

This is not from The Beeches or even very close but it makes a change from my usual fungi pictures. This was almost all of the waxcaps found yesterday on a survey of the lawns in front of Kentchurch Court, a stately home just up the Monnow Valley. For the record the 13 species shown are flavipes, citrinovirens, quieta, ovina, ceracea, chlorophana, irrigata, psittacina, intermedia, insipida, calyptriformis, conica and virginia. Pratensis was also found.

October fungi - Plums and Custard

This is a new species for me here at The Beeches. It is a common enough fungi but comes in delightful colours - hence the name. Unfortunately this example suffered some damage from my mower before I spotted it growing on an old conifer stump. It's latin name is Tricholomopsis rutilans.

Great year for Red Admirals

A poor summer for butterflies in general - both in terms of species and numbers. There were lots of Meadow Browns which is the commonest butterfly here but even their numbers were probably down and there were less of all other species as well as a number of non-appearances. The one I was most disappointed about was the iconic meadow butterfly here - the Marbled White. However the one species that has had an outstanding year is the Red Admiral. I don't know whether it is because of Climate Change or just the particular weather we have had this year but they have been plentiful. Here we are in mid-October and they are still flying. I took this photo yesterday.