Very enjoyable walk with Ann and Mike at Paxton on a Slime mould hunt, which proved successful with one definite species and possibly a second one. Ann found an extensive colony of the green Elf Cup. Amazing how many small creatures also lived on rotting logs including Collembolids as on the first image, the appropriately named Winter Moth and Centipedes. When we looked hard at the mossy areas ther were small toadstools still present. Light was poor and images handheld so not great quality!
A somewhat reduced party explored the heathland at Sandy in the afternoon and spent a couple of hours happily engaged with a large variety of species including this very impressive slime mould (many images are jpeg out-of-the-camera stacks as limited time to process at the moment). I also include a species sheet for the day
A very enjoyable day showing a party of 16 from Paxton Volunteers, the Royal Photographic Nature Group and Cambridge Camera Club some of the fungal delights at Sandy. Here a few from the morning session including the slime mould Myxomycota, Parasols, Small Ink cap and Fly Agaric. Afternoon photos on the heathland to follow!
The only thing that I definitely offered for the RPS Workshop on fungi at Brandon yesterday was over 30 years of visiting and hence a lot of knowledge of what species are found where and when. Brandon fulfilled this promise with lots of colourful and attractive species from the Porcelain fungi up on the beech branches to the colourful Mycena haematopus, Fly agarics and Amethyst Deceivers. We tried different lighting and experimental techniques - some not yet quite mastered like the 'toadstool in the Bokeh'. We even found lots of Slime Mould - though probably only one species.
