Category: David

Ancient, hollowed-out oak by the paddling pool on Tettenhall Upper Green.

The charring in the hollow presumably indicates that vandals once set a fire inside.

Mushrooms to look out for over the coming months. Sulfur tuft are bright yellow and grow in clumps on wood (including buried wood).

They are one of the few species which should carry on appearing even in the coldest winter months.

Juvenile black headed gull, possibly mature next year, using a post in Perton Pool as a vantage point.

Cluster of honey fungus which had grown through the stone wall of a garden between the two greens at Tettenhall: views from above and below.

Dead tree in Wightwick Manor woods. There are nest holes above, possibly woodpeckers’.

Honey fungus spreading high up the trunk shows why the tree died – clumps opf the fungus featured in the previous post.

Honey fungus was until recently thought to be a single species, but it’s now been found there are a handful of closely related species. This may be an explanation for the variability of appearance (some of which is seen in these pictures) and in habitat.

All types live on wood: some only on dead wood. Others live on trees, including some of the economically important ones. These destroy the roots of the roots of the trees they are parasiting, eventually killing the host.

The underground structures of honey fungus may form a single organism for an entire wood or forest. The largest known single organism alive on earth today is a north American honey fungus spread over more than three square miles and thousands of years old.

The fruiting bodies are common. They usually grow in clusters, found on the base or top surface of stumps or on fallen or felled trunks. On living trees they are usually (but not always) low down.