Stephen Plummer

The beautiful Turkeytail (Trametes versicolor) and Splitgill (Schizophyllum commune) at Clophill Lakes NR

Spain has been very cold, very windy and very wet, too, so it was great to find this Paper Wasp and Egyptian Grasshopper here in Almeria earlier today.

I was really surprised to find a Great Willow Aphid whilst sieving leaf litter at Clophill Lakes NR yesterday. Apparently they can be quite active this time of year - mainly on the tree, I guess - but disappear from April to June when no one has discovered where they go! Leaf litter perhaps?

Teesdale botanist and mountain rescue team founder turns 100 Dr Margaret Bradshaw receives a card from King Charles and Queen Camilla on her 100th birthday.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
In 2024 I spent a day in Margaret’s company on an Alchemilla workshop where she climbed over a 5-bar gate and was up and down on her knees demonstrating various plant features. In the afternoon I held her hand as we walked beside the River Tees. What an amazing woman!

A wonderful suite of winter-flying moths on the Clophill Lakes NR visitor centre: Spring Usher, Winter Moth & Early Moth.

When I prepared for Saturday’s New Year Plant Hunt at Clophill Lakes NR I thought that 15 species of flowering plants would be our maximum total, so I was amazed (and a tad alarmed) to record 28 species with 25 people present.
Field Penny-cress, Thyme-leaved Speedwell and Musk Mallow pictured here.

My son, John, really wanted to experience the weird and wonderful Starfish Fungus at Oxshott Common in Surrey. Work prevented a day visit, so we went down at night: crazy, but fun. The fruiting fungi are going over now but a single egg is showing promise!

Following the visit to West Cowes Cemetery I took the chain-link ferry across the river in order to visit East Cowes Cemetery where this beauty was waiting for me: Podoscypha multizonata 😃

Clavulinopsis umbrinella under Cedar in Northwood Cemetery, West Cowes, Isle of Wight this morning

Pterula multifida, a birthday gift at Parkhurst Forest, Isle of Wight 😃

It was nice to catch up with one of the Clophill Lakes Otters this afternoon, if briefly!

Wow, wow, wow: Mycena pseudocorticola and, finally, Mycena meliigena, occurring together on moss-covered oak branches in quantity (this is just a small section). A friend spent years looking for M. meliigina every time she came across M. pseudocorticola! [Rushmere CP, Bucks]

Piggyback Rosegill (Volvariella surrecta) on Clouded Funnel near High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, today.

Some nice fungi on today’s Bucks Fungus Group foray: Violet Webcap, Olive Oysterling and Toothed Jelly Fungus (The Webcap was picked up from another site on the way).

You may well be right. I will let you know when we get the DNA results

I don’t, sorry - the thinking is that it is either Butyroboletus fechtneri or B. fuscoroseus - you can read the foray report here: www.bucksfungusgroup.org.uk/Documents/20...

2 weird, wonderful and rare fungus species from the BMS Autumn Foray: Squamanita paradoxa taking over the fruiting body of its host, and Hypomyces leoticola growing from the base of its ‘Jelly Babies’ host (the slimy green ‘tongue’)!

Clavaria zollingeri (Violet Coral), my 2001st fungus species, but the one that I was most hoping to catch up with during my time in Scotland .
Turns out it was on the lawn of the estate where we are staying…it also turns out that it should be called Clavaria violaceopulchre as zollingeri is in Java!

The hall that we’re working in for the British Mycological Society’s Autumn Foray in Dumfries is cavernous!!

First evening at the BMS’s Autumn Foray based in Dumfries and the signs are already promising with lots of species of fungi just outside the front door of the lab. We were also treated to a show-and-tell by Thomas Lassoe

It was a privilege to be a part of the #UKFungus day at College Lakes NR and to see the passion of the Bucks Fungus Group members and the enthusiasm of those visiting

A mystery Bolete from Pullingshill Wood, Marlow, that’s causing some excitement. It will be DNA-sequenced and, hopefully, the species will be revealed!

An amazing foray in Pullingshill Wood, Bucks, this morning, including Rubroboletus rhodoxanthus and possible Suillelus mendax

It was a privilege to spend a day with the renowned Libby Houston in the Avon Gorge, especially under her special Hornbeam: Sorbus x houstoniae

It will be interesting to see how much the list increases over the next few months

You’d love it, but at least you get to go to the Spring Foray….which probably won’t be possible for me next year!

Chuffed to have just found a Shieldbug species new to Bedfordshire: Southern Green Shieldbug at Clophill Lakes NR

It was last year’s Autumn Foray in the Forest of Dean😃

Hi Fay, I’m trying to remember, but I think that it was grass - I can’t find it photo of it in situ.
Penny sent it off for DNA sequencing and, thankfully, it resulted in a clear sequence and match!

It looks like an Arrhenia that I found during the BMS's 2024 Autumn Foray may be new for Britain: Arrhenia glauca [Yew Tree Brake Cemetery, Cinderford]