Nature Notes October 2020

Date Published: 01-11-2020

Very mixed weather ending with a very wet and windy week.

SIGHTINGS
Birds (seen or heard): Heron, Common Crows, Magpies, Jays, Buzzards, Sparrowhawk, Common Gull, Black-headed Gull, Green/Great Spotted Woodpecker, Tawny Owls, Wood Pigeons, Canada Geese, Nuthatch, Treecreepers, Wrens, Blackbirds, Song Thrush, Robin, Dunnock, Siskins, Stonechats, Goldfinches, Greenfinches, Chaffinches, Coal/Blue/Great/Long-tailed Tits.
Insects: Wood Lice, Wasps, Buff-tailed Bees, Midges.
Spiders: Sheet-web, Orb-web, Wasp, Garden.
Butterflies: Speckled Wood, Peacock.
Mammals: Grey Squirrels, Pipistrelle Bats, Fox.
Pond Life: Whirlygig Beetles, Pond Skaters.
Plants(in flower/berry): Holly, Ivy, Blackberry, Common Gorse, Large White Pond Lily, Rhododendron, Rowan, Cotoneaster.
Dragonfly: Common Darter.
Fungi: Sulphur Tuft, Conifer Tuft, Pink-edge Bonnet, Fly Agaric, Rough-stemmed Bolete, Common Puffball, Cow Bolete, Plums and Custard, Many zoned Polypore, Cauliflower Fungus, False Chantelle, White Punk Bracket Polypore, Scaly Rustgill (Golden Needle Mushroom), Velvet Top Fungus, Artist’s Bracket, Silverleaf Fungus, Powder-puff Bracket, Crowded Parchment, Flat crep (Flat oysterling). Veiled Polypore, Angel Wing, Yellow Staghorn (Yellow Jelly Antlers), Charcoal Burner, Brown Roll-rim, Common yellow russula, The Deceiver, Downy milk cap, Rufous milkcap, Milk-white Brittlegill, Common Earth ball, Fir-cone mushroom, Yellow leg bonnet.

Many Fungus have been viewed during the month, due to the ideal wet and mild conditions.
Tawny Owls were calling.
Two Wasp nests were discovered in banks.

NATURE FACT
The Yellow Staghorn/Jelly Antler-fungus is a common specie, but variable in form. The fruit body is normally branched with the branches also forked and may grow singly or in clusters. The texture of the flesh, sticky, firm and pliable, distinguishing it from superficially similar species of Fairy-club fungi.

Recorder: C. Wilcox 31.10.20