Strange

It's not that long ago that, somehow, I'd never seen Fly Agaric. Whilst at Charnwood Lodge I found loads of fruiting bodies underneath the canopy of otherwise exposed trees ....

I also found an earthball in moss at the edge of a wooded area, which from the large diameter (c10mm) must be Scleroderma citrinum [Common Earthball].

I've had another play with some squeezed moss soup. I've managed to get some text and measurements from the camera software to merge onto the image, here's another testate amoeba with a 100micron line for scale.

I can't get the measurement data to transfer to the video clips yet though, so will probably need to dimension snaps to accompany them. Here's a rotifer of some sort (I think!) - look at the extent of the disturbance it's causing whilst 'hoovering' .... this is all happening within a merest veneer of soup under a cover-slip - it's ridiculous really.

Meanwhile, I have absolutely no idea what this weird thing is propelling itself around using cilia of some sort.

Believe it or not though, that's far from the strangest thing I've seen all day ...

I do like Isabella Rossellini, and I'm not at all surprised that sado-maschism excites her. There's a whole load of these on the 'Green Porno' Youtube channel, all equally weird yet informative.

A Man Eater

Fly Agaric (Amanita muscaria)

Had another go today at looking for Fly Agaric. We've got our nephews up with us this weekend, so I only had a short slot in the early afternoon whilst the kids were all at the cinema. I headed over to Martinshaw Wood this time, but after strolling around the paths and going off-piste there was no sign of anything resembling red balls on white sticks. I did find a few bits, including these two:

Presumed Orange Peel Fungus (Aleuria aurantia)

No idea - on birch

I decided to leave Martinshaw Wood and head up towards the Charnwood area again, maybe having a quick look at Beacon Hill or somewhere similar. I took the obvious route from Groby along the road to Newtown Linford. Bugger me, as I turned the last corner before reaching the Newtown Linford junction - there bold as brass on a roadside mound were several bright red fungi. I managed to park up alongside the verge and fill me boots, and it was a lot easier than trudging around dark woodland! There were young and old specimens pretty much going through the full spectrum of maturity from spherical to flattened to upturned. I grabbed shots of a few, except the very old virtually unrecogniseable ones.

This one was on the same mound, and there were others that may have been the same but completely gone over.

Brown Birch Bolete (Leccinum scabrum)

And growing on one of the birches on the mound was this.

Hoof Fungus (Fomes fomentarius)