Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Cornwall Wildlife Trust and Photographing Fungi

I am keen on volunteering now we've moved to Cornwall, albeit one step at a time.  I've started by becoming a Governor of our local school and have also expressed an interest to support our local Wildlife Trust, the Cornwall Wildlife Trust (CWT).

Having attended a photography group evening at the CWT headquarters, we found out about a planned photography trip to the grounds outside of the National Trust property at Lanhydrock, we only had a few hours but decided to pop along anyway.

The principle focus of the photography on this occasion was the emerging fungi and there's a couple of well-known (to them) spots to visit.

We met at the appointed time and after a Health and Safety briefing, ambled to the roadside wet woodland to see what we could see. I should warn you that I have absolutely no idea what-is-what, so no species names as yet, though I am hopeful of something around Christmas time that may help us :)

These. for example. I suspect are the same or closely related species:



I particularly like this lime-green looking jobbie:


This tree has clearly been sawn-through but it has led to some interesting looking post-mortem growth:


A random guess suggests these plate like extrusions are probably closely related too:



This specimen is jellyfish-like in appearance, and has somewhat of a 'glow-in-the-dark' look about it:


I presume the small ringlets under this oak leaf are fungal too though I really do have no idea:


This apparently is the star of the show - a Magpie Inkcap.  There was a larger specimen but by the time we approached it, someone had trodden on it... Helen did however find this one: 


Which slowly emerged, we took this image about 90 minutes after the first one:


We spent an hour with the group and then decided to walk into the grounds and down to the river.  The house as ever was looking special:


We underestimated the walk in terms of distance and effort (the track we selected back to the car park was a bit of a climb and we were out of time).  Signs of Autumn were everywhere:


A brief foray then in terms of the location and the group but there are some very pleasant people in the group and some real photographic expertise to learn from, so we're looking forward to both the next meeting and indeed the next outdoor event.