Oyster-of-the-Woods
Winter is still a productive season for wild food if you know where to look. Out on Dartmoor, along the River Teign …
Velvet shank
Would you expect the Japanese workers who grow Enokitake mushrooms to have lower rates of cancer deaths than the general population? That’s …
There’s a steak growing on a tree
There’s what looks like a raw steak growing out of a tree in the woods on Dartmoor: It’s Beefsteak Fungus, Fistulina hepatica. …
Crimson Waxcaps
Waxcaps live in unimproved grassland. That means they are often only found in graveyards as the rest of the grassland environment has …
The sort of Plums and Custard you can’t eat
Looking back in my photo archive of curious and wonderful fungi I find photographs of Tricholomopsis rutilans, Plums and Custard: According to …
A mushroom to crow about
Walking along the River I spot an interesting mushroom. It’s a Magpie Ink Cap.
Violet Webcap
There are only a few fungi which are bright purple and this is one of them, the Violet Webcap, Cortinarius violaceus: It’s …
Mushroom clouds
There are Clouded Agarics, Clitocybe nebularis, all over this wooded slope at the National Trust’s Killerton House. They are chunky mushrooms, with …
A Charcoal Burner in the woods
There’s a purple mushroom on the forest floor. No, not purple, lilac. No, not lilac, it’s blue; and it’s pink in the …
What’s in a name?
Here’s the most wonderful fungus growing on a decaying slime mould growing on a piece of tree bark smaller than my finger …
Orange Peel Fungus
I’ve been going through some of my archive of photographs and delighting in some of the finds I made many years ago. …
Stinkhorns
Stinkhorns are fascinating fungi. You can normally smell them before you see them. It’s the putrid smell of rotting flesh or something …
Killerton and the Meadow Waxcaps
Killerton House is a National Trust property near Exeter in Devon. I’ve visited quite a few times and seen some wonderful fungi …
Chapeau Rouge
There’s a mushroom with a bright red cap in the woods. It’s such an unearthly red and the stem and the gills …
Yellowleg Bonnet
We find a delicate mushroom on our fungus foray. That’s a relief, because this mushroom season has been very poor, with the …
The Tree: An afternoon on Dartmoor and a wild idea
Dartmoor is a wonderful upland area of Devon. It is based on granite rocks which frequently outcrop on high tors. I’m having …
Going over the top; walking the coast of Westray
Westray is full of Neolithic, Iron Age and Bronze Age middens; rubbish dumps full of wonderful finds. If you live on a …
If you go down to the woods today
One night in the Cairngorms means there’s a chance to see Red Squirrels, Pine Martens, Red Deer and yet it’s the fungi …
Sunshine Parasols in a huge faerie ring
There are many huge Parasol Mushrooms in this upland grassland. They are growing in a faerie ring over 60 metres wide and …
Parrots in the grass
I’m walking on Orley Common and there are parrots in the grass. No, not these kinds of parrots.
As rare as Witches’ Hats
On the endless A9 as I travel north from Devon to Orkney the lay-by numbers help denote the passing of a day …
The quiet hunt
There’s something in the air today in Devon. It’s the merest hint of a dampness and a chill in the air whispering …
Perspective
Photography is all about perspective. Any subject can be rendered strange, unusual, unsettling, quirky or simply different by the slightest change in …
Oysters growing on trees
Wandering along the River Dart in Devon I see a dead tree brimming with fungi. They look like Pleurotus cornucopiae to me. …
The tale of Hazel Gloves and a fungus which grows on a fungus
There’s an unusual fungus on a thin tree branch in the woods surrounding Orley Common. I know that I’ve never seen it …
Bog Beacon
I’m in a woodland centre with a group of enthusiastic mycologists, with stereo microscopes, obscure expensive books on fungi and a packed …
The Blusher – forty years ago in my nature notebooks
When I was a child a group of retired gentlemen naturalists took me under their wing. I went on weekly countryside walks …
The trees have ears – forty years ago in my nature notebooks
I bought my first SLR camera when I was 11 from my neighbour Ron for £6. It was a massively heavy Russian …
Puffballs – forty years ago in my nature notebooks
When I was eleven years old I joined my local natural history and microscopical society. The next youngest member was called Darwin …
Dacrymyces deliquescens – forty years ago in my nature notebooks
Forty years ago I was excited to see every mushroom or fungus I could find. Even something as plain as Dacrymyces deliquescens …