Toft wood Lichens

 

Snowdrops and Other Spring Flowers in Toft

These images were taken with a small Sony camera that was given to me as it wasn't working well. I gave it a good clean and then tested it at Toft churchyard which is turning white with snowdrops at the moment. Only saves in jpeg but will be a useful camera to carry with me as it has an impressive 20 times Zoom and can also do a reasonable macro shot.

Cambridge Botanic Gardens 2

 A few more images from our visit to the Gardens on Saturday including my first Bees of the year busy collecting from Winter Honeysuckle which is in full bloom. In the wooded areas some very impressive thorns and the plasmodium of a slime mould showing how wet it had been prior to our visit.

Cambridge Botanic Gardens 1

Botanic Gardens in Cambridge are at their best as regards spring flowers at the moment and looked extra good in the morning sunshine after overnight rain. I was using an old film camera 50 mm lens which gives very soft backgrounds for some of the shots and the modern 90mm macro for the rest.

Winter Walk at Wimpole Estate

Very enjoyable walk in the sunshine at Wimpole Estate yesterday morning wih my full-spectrum camera.

Extending Paxton Lichen/Fungi List

An enjoyable walk round Heronry trail at Paxton yesterday in the sunshine spending some time in the scrubland near the Quarry photographing a few more lichens and fungi. The most interesting find for me was this bright pink lichenocolous fungus - Illosporiopsis christiansenii parasitic on Physcia tenella and sometimes also on Xanthoria parietina. It grows in and on the host lichen, feeding from it, degrading it, and eventually killing it. You can see in the second image bottom right the areas or sick or dead lichen of both species. I will add the ID sheet when completed.