Super moon from Cuckfield West Sussex, UK on 15 November 2024

 

No mow May is good. For birds, no mow patches all year is better.

 No mow May provides a feast for pollinators, tackles pollution, reduces urban heat extremes, and locks away atmospheric carbon below ground. 

Reference: https://www.plantlife.org.uk/campaigns/nomowmay/?gad_source=1

In this Cuckfield, West Sussex garden patches of Common Knapweed have been left to set seed and are unmown up to now.  The result has been glorious.  A flock of five Goldfinches and a Blue tit fluttered all over dead stems feasting on the seed heads earlier this week.

Earth tongue and Stag's horn fungi in a Cuckfield, West Sussex garden.

 

Earth tongue, Geoglossum species

Expand these pictures to see the Earth tongues below.  

Glutinoglossum glutinosum is a saprophytic species. Its fruitbodies grow scattered on soil in moss beds or in grassy areas. The fungus has been used as an indicator of medium-quality grassland in the UK.  Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glutinoglossum_glutinosum

Xylaria hypoxylon, Candlesnuff or Stag's horn fungus

The candlesnuff fungus, also known as the 'Stag's Horn', has an erect, simple or forked fruiting body with a downy stalk. It grows in groups on dead and rotting wood, and can be found on stumps and branches of all sorts of trees. Fungi belong to their own kingdom and get their nutrients and energy from organic matter, rather than photosynthesis like plants. It is often just the fruiting bodies, or 'mushrooms', that are visible to us, arising from an unseen network of tiny filaments called 'hyphae'. These fruiting bodies produce spores for reproduction, although fungi can also reproduce asexually by fragmentation.  Reference: https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/wildlife-explorer/fungi/candlesnuff-fungus

The Waxcaps are doing well still too.

A Redwing, five Goldfinches and a Blue tit feeding on Common Knapweed seed heads in an unmown wildflower lawn

The video below is photographs taken from inside the house zoomed onto a patch of Common Knapweed.  Leaving unmown areas of lawn brings great joy to me and the visiting, hungry birds.

Nature lovers may be interested in some of past nature walks at https://out.ac/IBoN9X

 

Fungal Foray around Cuckfield, West Sussex, UK

 

Our Haywards Heath u3a Nature walks group fungal foray had a wonderful, if chilly morning finding rare and delightful fungi this 13th October 2024 starting in the churchyard under a pine tree.  There were numerous tiny fungi here, which were difficult to identify.  There are over 15,000 fungus species in the UK.

 Many yellow waxcaps were found elsewhere in the churchyard.  See https://www.plantlife.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Waxcaps_GrasslandFungiGuideManagement.pdf

Click on any picture to enlarge it.

Artist easel bracket fungus.
Pressure e.g. a scratch changes the underside from white to black. 

Five arms lengths suggest a 500 year old oak

Using Google Lens to assist IDs

Ballerina or a Meadow waxcap: probably the latter.
Exquisitely beautiful nonetheless.

Laccaria amethystina, Amethyst deceiver was found to my great joy, having missed it on a "walk out" the previous day in the drizzle.

Dog's vomit slime mould

See https://youtu.be/R3o6DofDQO0?si=UqEM9LsTxb15yKmh

Hedgehog fungus

Birch Polypore bracket fungi

Galloway cattle