Friday 9 October 2015

Some Moorhens at Peter Pan were fighting in their curious way, lying back and kicking each other.


A Coot, seeing a fight, of course had to join in, and chased one of the Moorhens away.


The Great Crested Grebe family from the fallen poplar were on the Serpentine under the bridge again, with the parents fishing in the wire baskets and bringing up small perch for the chicks. This parent decided that one of the chicks had had enough, and chased it away. The chick dived, a grebe's normal action when chased. But that's no use if your pursuer is a grebe too.


A Peregrine circled over the Serpentine and glided away in the direction of the Metropole Hilton hotel, the favourite daytime station of the pair.


A family of Long-Tailed Tits was crossing the gap in the bushes at the Vista, pausing for a look around before coming out into the dangerous open.


There were not many small birds to be seen in the leaf yard. Perhaps they had seen the Peregrine before I did. But a Nuthatch came down to the fence to take food.


A Carrion Crow was rooting about in a waste bin beside the Serpentine, scattering food wrappings on the ground. To its joy, it found part of a cheese and chutney sandwich, and carried it away.


The female Little Owl was in last year's nest tree, stretching her wings above her head.


The male owl was also out, but mostly hidden by leaves.

These irregular violet mushrooms were growing on the patch of wood chippings near the Physical Energy statue where I photographed the Stubble Rosegill yesterday. I looked through several web pages but couldn't work out what they are.


It seems that the trees from which these chippings were cut already contained the mycelium of both these mushroom species, and spreading chippings around is a way of spreading fungi. The first Stubble Rosegill I photographed some time ago was on another patch of chippings. Some species of fungi cause rot in trees, so perhaps using chippings as mulch here is a bad idea.

Update: Mario tells me that they are Wood Blewits (Clitocybe nuda). And he has also identified a new species in this remarkable pile of wood chippings -- see Saturday's post above.

2 comments:

  1. This mushrooms are Wood Blewits (Clitocybe nuda). If you pick them up, you'll see that, unlike Auricularia, they have a stem (they are also called Blue Stalk Mushrooms). In this patch of wood chippings, as well as Stubble Rosegills and Wood Blewits, there was a large amount of White Domecaps (Lyophyllum connatum) a couple of weeks ago. Interestingly, while this patch of wood chips had a bounty of fungi, another patch nearby was completely bare.
    Mario

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    Replies
    1. Thanks very much. I've changed the text. There were also more White Domecaps today, Saturday -- see above.

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