British Summertime ended last weekend when we turned the clocks back an hour. That always makes me feel a little sad. Symbolically it’s the final goodbye to another season of growth, light nights and warmer weather. However, it’s not so depressing now that I have the woodland to look after. There are still lots going on and every visit is different and winter is far from dead and boring at the woods. Soon I will need to get busy again with the chainsaw and continue my management plan of thinning the overstocked sycamore.

Yesterday was my latest visit. My main task was to take the fixed point photographs for my Woodland Trust volunteering role. It was also a chance to meet up with some woodland neighbours that I hadn’t seen for a few months. They kindly gave me a jar of crab apple jelly made from some of the fruit from my gnarly old tree.

First job though was to check the trail camera. Another 300+ clips in 10 days! Trawling through the dozens of squirrel and wood pigeon shots, I found some nice ones of the Tawny Owl and a Jay bathing. Sorry I haven’t posted any videos of the pond life yet but it takes a lot of time checking them all. Coming soon I hope.

The pond water was clear and cold as I scooped out handfuls of fallen beech leaves. I said before that it’s not an ideal position for that very reason but it’s not a big job. Some of the leaves have settled on the bottom covering some of the black plastic liner and helping to naturalise it’s appearance. I’m hoping some of it will break down to add nutrients for plants and small life forms in the future. Right now it’s just a watering hole but very popular. I’m looking for oxygenating plants to help but also thinking about adding a small solar powered oxygenating pump.

I’m finding lot’s more fungi now that I am a little better informed after the foraging day I attended a few weeks ago. I doubt I will try eating any though. To be honest I don’t think I have found any safe edibles apart from small puffballs. The daughter of some friends of ours is doing an undergraduate in Natural Sciences and a project on fungi. (Hi L. if you are reading this and if you can ID any please let me know.) We have swapped emails and photos of various fungi for identification which I hope is helping her but it is also helping me to keep the momentum going to learn more about the subject. It’s a massive subject and one which I can only scratch the surface of but it is making me more more observant and opening up another aspect of my woodland and it’s inhabitants. I haven’t had time to ID some of the new ones but I am posting some photos here just because they are so photogenic.  Sorry about the lack of sharpness but in a dark woodland and close up range it’s difficult.

This one is some sort of funnel mushroom growing below some hazel trees.

These tiny finger-like ones are growing on a mossy log

This young bracket fungus is growing on a dead Birch log. It looks like the horse hoof fungus (Fomes Fomentarius)  in it’s early stages. Also known as tinder fungus.

These small guys are growing on dead wood and look like Wood Ear, Jelly Ear or as they used to be known – Jews Ear. Normally they grow on dead Elder but this is a different wood.

Not sure what this chunky little mushroom is yet but if it looks quite appetizing

That’s all for now. I have a plan to stay late one day, to try cooking in the dark and see how coping with the cold and dark nights pans out in preparation for a possible overnighter. Yikes!

above – Sulphur Tuft (Hypholoma Fasciculare) fungi on a dead tree stump.

We’ve just had a few days caravanning in Southport on the Sefton coast and the sight of thousands of pink footed geese flying in formation as they head out to the salt marshes at dusk everyday is awe inspiring. It was the last morning of the mini break and as I head to the toilet block, I see and hear them returning inland. On a cold October morning, a warm toilet seat is a mixed blessing! I try not to think too much about who the last occupant might have been and turn my thoughts to going home, inspired by nature then another visit to my woods.

It was dark and drizzly when I left home to go on Saturday but I was ready for another visit and had a few tasks in mind. Last time, when I was preparing the hazel rods for basket making, I discovered that the riving break used for splitting rods, had rotted away. I needed to make another. I also wanted to do a few little jobs at the pond which is next to my workshop/shelter. It was still drizzly, so an ideal place to spend the day.

The riving brake consists of two upright posts with two horizontal ones, angled to form a shallow triangular shape. When splitting hazels rods for example, you place the rod between the horizontal poles which allows you to bend it which is needed when splitting them. It’s also called cleaving or riving them. The triangular shape allows you to put rods of different diameters in it. There’s still a few finishing touches to do but this is how it’s looking.

The large clump of fungi that I discovered last time is even bigger now. This photo shows my foot next to the biggest one so you can see how big it was – around 20cm diameter. I do believe these are Clouded Agaric the Latin name is Clitocybe Nebularis and I found more in different parts of the woods.

It is a good time for fungi now and the recent wet weather has sparked off a lot of fruiting bodies. For those that don’t know how fungi grow, the main organism is a hidden web of root-like fibres called mycelium. They are under the earth or inside rotten wood. The mushroom part is just the fruiting body, just like an apple on a tree. It contains the spores that will eventually be released to the air or the ground to reproduce and spread. So picking the mushroom does not kill the organism any more than picking an apple does. It just limits it’s capacity to reproduce. It has recently been discovered that mycelium of certain species of fungi are symbiotically connected with trees. They attach to the trees roots and are usually particular to one species of tree. Both parties benefit. The fibres are minute and known as Mycorrhizae and they can extend for miles underground. They can bore into rocks extracting vital minerals and water which are passed onto the tree roots and in return the tree provides them with carbohydrates which they cannot manufacture for themselves. Amazing!

These gorgeous tiny fungi growing in moss I believe are one of the Bonnet (Mycena) family and below is a tiny Common Puffball (Lycoperdon Perlatum) growing on a dead stick. It’s about 2-3 cms high.

The autumn colours on the trees are just starting to show, so next time there might be some photos of those. I am still working my way through the 300+ video clips on my trailcam and hope to post some compilations later this week. Bye for now and get out there and enjoy nature and see what you can find.

I set off in the dark and rain yesterday but as often happens, the weather had cleared en route. Last Saturday I attended a fungi foraging event organised by the Woodland Trust in one of their woods. It’s a subject that overwhelms me by the sheer number of varieties, yet I’d love to be able to safely identify a few of the edible ones. And as the instructor said, “First you should learn the lethal ones”.

The event also included a cook-up and tasting session of the ones we had gathered. It was interesting and informative and I think I can ID half a dozen accurately. I have never seen anything that looked edible in my woods but it has fired me up to have a really good look and see just what I could find, edible or not. This beautiful and stunning fungi was growing just inside the main gate to the woods and I believe it is a Magpie Inkcap – not edible (not more than once anyway!)

I spent a good time looking around mine and immediately found these, not seen them there before and still haven’t fully ID’d them yet but they look like Clitocybe Nebularis also known as Clouded Agaric

I also found these small fungi dotted around but no idea what they are. If there are any expert fungi folks reading this and know what they are please leave a comment.

Having set my trail camera at the pond last time, I was keen to see what was on it. There were over 400 clips and that is taking some wading through. I can say that wildlife is very much enjoying the facility. The main customers are Grey Squirrels, Wood Pigeons and various small birds. Night time shots did not come out well but several pairs of small shiny eyes were seen which look like Woodmice. Once I’ve had time to sort and edit them I shall post a compilation video. It’s satisfying to see how my work on the pond is paying off. I have finished it now apart from perhaps adding a few plants around and some oxygenating weed in it. This is how it’s looking. The mossy rocks make it look quite well established.

Remember my award for this blog? The second box arrived and I was so excited to find it contained a storm kettle. Sometimes called ghillie kettles or Kelly kettles, they were developed by Irish fishermen who wanted a simple device for boiling water, that would work in windy weather and use easily found materials fro fuel i.e. twigs. It’s basically  a double walled hollow tube. There’s a dish to contain the fire and the kettle sits on top. It acts like a chimney drawing up the flames. The water sits inside the double wall and is heated quickly. So I had to try it out didn’t I? I have to be honest and say my first session with it was not a huge success and I started wondering if I should just use my camp stove. But also being honest, it was due to my lack of experience and stupidity. So, first tip, don’t fill the water right to the spout. When it boils it will spill out and potentially extinguish the fire. In this case it didn’t but I was lucky. Secondly you need good dry sticks and plenty of initial tinder/kindling to get the fire going quickly. Having a small area of fire in the base means not a lot of heat to ignite the little sticks you drop down the funnel. Note to myself – get your act together next time you numpty!

The night before, I had been watching a video of someone making a basket from strips of hazel. They looked really attractive and as I have plenty of nice hazel rods, it made me want to have a go at making one. I would love to be able to use some of my trees for crafts and this would be ideal. I cut a couple of nice straight rods. You cut a nick in the bark and top layer then bend the rod which causes the top fibres to split away from the rod. You keep working your way along, bending and lifting until you have a long strip of flat, thin, flexible but strong material which is used for the weaving part of the basket. You can get 4-6 pieces from one rod and the remaining piece is cut and trimmed to make the hoop around the top of the basket and the longitudinal ribs. It’s not a quick or easy process but quite satisfying and for first attempts I got fairly good results. Here’s a photo of the strips and remaining rods.

The afternoon came bringing with it some rain, so I retired to my shelter to do this work.  The sound of the rain on the tree canopy and my shelter roof was calming and I just sat for a while taking in the beauty and peacefulness of the woods. The sun poked through now and then, illuminating the wet leaves and for a while, all seemed well and I was in my heaven. I didn’t want to leave. As Van Morrison says at the end of Coney Island

“I look at the side of your face as the sunlight comes
Streaming through the window in the autumn sunshine
And all the time going to Coney Island I’m thinking,
Wouldn’t it be great if it was like this all the time.”

October is here and yesterday saw the first frost on my car. It was dark too when I headed off to the woods. Thoughts of the coming winter and short days passed through my mind. Time seems to elude me these days and it seems only weeks ago that I was seeing the woodland coming back to life after last winter. It will soon be shutting up shop again and I will have to get busy with the chainsaw.

I was meeting a guy (Miles) from the Forestry Commission who was going to assess my application for a thinning licence. My present five year one runs out at the end of the year and in order to carry on felling any trees, I will need a new one. The whole woods has a TPO (Tree Preservation Order) which is set by the local council to prevent people felling important trees. As the woods has an ancient status I guess they felt it necessary to issue it. We met with another woodland neighbour who was also having his application assessed. The morning went quickly as we walked around our woods explaining our plans and what we have done so far and Miles gave us some helpful advice too. He told me that what I had done so far was good and that he would approve my application. Good to hear.

I was keen to see the how the new pond was after a week of very rainy weather. Had it filled up much?  It’s in a very sheltered position and I doubt it will collect much direct water, hence the need for the hosepipe idea of topping it up from my rainwater butt.

This is how it looked and it appears to have gained a couple of inches of water – an encouraging result. I set to and dug a shallow trench to bury the hosepipe. Now here’s a mini story about what I call Cosmic Ordering. Sometimes when in need of something, if you focus your mind on finding that thing, it will often come to you one way or another. Often in unexpected ways. I have experienced this many times. Well I didn’t want to have to buy a new hosepipe just for this little project and have been looking around car boot sales, online second hand sales etc but with no luck. I started thinking I would have to buy a new piece because I can’t progress the pond much until I have one.  Earlier this week I started clearing some rubbish out of my cellar and took a car load to the council tip. As I was dumping it, an elderly gentleman was heading toward me carrying a pretty expensive looking hosepipe and wheeled trolley dispenser. You are not allowed to take anything out of the skip once it’s in there but if you intercept it before it’s dumped, you are not transgressing their stupid rules. Kindly the man allowed me to take it off his hands and I headed home excited with my find! It’s better than the one we use in the garden so I swapped them and brought the old one to use in the pond.

Next job was to fill it to it’s maximum. The water barrel was full again and it took another half of it before it started to overflow at it’s lowest point. Now to start pinning down the edges of the liner and making it look more natural. Nearby there are a numerous large stones, many are covered in moss. It was a bit like a jigsaw puzzle, fitting them as best I could to hide the plastic as much as possible. At the shallow end I placed smaller stones which will give a firm base for birds and small animals to stand on and maybe take a bath. It still needs a few finishing touches, I transplanted a couple of clumps of sedge and I shall plant more next time. I am pleased with it and hopefully so will the local wildlife.

The title of this post mentions an award. One of the large woodland sales agents (woodlands.co.uk) also has a really helpful website with articles, a newsletter, blogs, videos etc and earlier this year, announced a competition for various “bests” – blogs, photos, forest schools, dogs, tool recommendations and lots more. A number of people who read my blog have commented on how much they enjoy it, so I thought “let’s have a go” and I entered my blog details. I’d completely forgotten about it until a few weeks ago when an email from them said I had won an award for it and would be shortly receiving some gifts as the prize. When I got home from the woods yesterday, a large box was waiting for me on the table.  The competition details suggested the prizes might be a book and maybe a woodland tool. It felt like my birthday as I eagerly opened it. Wow what an nice surprise, There was a book but also an enamelled mug, a nice notebook, woodland related poster, tea towel, ferro rod fire starter, and a bizarrely, a collapsible silicon dog bowl! (I just need a dog now to go with it). The cover letter said that there is another box containing something to come direct from the manufacturer. Maybe it’s a dog from God himself? Now that would be Cosmic Ordering! Here’s a link to the competition and thank you, my readers for your kind encouragement.

https://www.woodlands.co.uk/woodlands-awards/2019-award-winners/