Category: David

Female pheasant looking around as it crossed on of the paths in the large garden at New Place, one of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust properties in Stratford on Avon.

Seen on a visit to the Woodland Trust’s Himley Plantation over the weekend, common stinkhorns. Quite a few others making their presence felt by their smell, but hidden in the undergrowth.

The tip of the fungus is normally a sticky brown layer which has the spores, usually a darker colour than the “egg” the fruiting bodies emerges from. Although these specimens looked fresh, the spore-containing layer may have been washed off by the overnight rain.

Stinkhorns disperse their spores by attracting flies by smell, having them land in a gooey layer holding the spores, then making sure that some of this layer is sticking to them when they take off again.

The smell, strong when the fungi are fresh, is usually described as resembling rotting flesh. To me, there is an additional overtone of having passed through the digestive system of a dog.

The fly here is on the stem of the fungus, not the tip where the spores had been.

Clump of clouded agarics (also known as clouded funnel) growing together in Himley Plantation recently. The management of the wood by the Woodland Trust encourages a wide variety of fungi species there, and autumn is normally the season when the greatest variety can be found at the same time.

As I was taking pictures of the fungi on one of the fallen tree trunks in Himley Plantation, this robin was darting about a couple of yards away.

Included in this set are pictures of several species of mycena mushrooms, fungi with small fruiting bodies.

Many of the hard to distinguish types grow on dead wood, including all of these which I noticed on visits to Himley Plantation.