Trumpington Flowers and Fungi

I joined Iain Webb's monthly walk at Trumpington Meadows Nature Reserve yesterday looking at October's wildlife. Here a record of the fungi and flowers that we found - I am always interested to record the state of the wildlife to compare with previous and future years. Certainly the recent rain has encouraged some fungi to emerge and lots of plants have sprung up in previously completely arid areas and are now flowering. Insects generally low but looks like the Dandelion heads are supplying nectar etc to surviving insects. Very unusual low rainbow appeared during the morning heralding some welcome afternoon rain.

Photography Workshop at Toft

Cambridge Camera Club run a couple of Table-top Workshops each year with a variety of projects including using a scanner to get black background images. This year, we returned to constructing and using a pinhole - either with a spare lens cap as here or an extension tube. The smallest and most central hole gives the best result - I had a couple of attempts before managing a very fine needle prick and this gave very good result. I always find it incredible that such a detailed image can be produced with no lens, just a very fine hole! We had the Drop machine working - I didn't get a go this time. Otherwise it was lots of table-top projects as shown here plus oil and water trays and black reflective tile etc

Fungi Day October 10th at Paxton Pits

 We were very pleased with the large turnout for the two  Fungi walks today led by Alan Robbins from the Huntingdonshire Fugus Group in the morning and afternoon. As everywhere else, the hot dry conditions have not encouraged fungal growth and fruiting though the recent rain has encouraged a few fruiting bodies to show above ground. Most of our finds were brackets attached to trees etc. Of the others, the favourite was definitely the Fluted Birds Nest Fungi

Paxton Pits October

Ellie requested seeing a Kingfisher on her visit to Paxton Pits today - request fulfilled plus the bonus of two sitting together for a time (too far into the leaves and branches to capture on the camera) and one of them capturing a large fish which it banged on a branch (unfortunately behind a lot of foliage) before swallowing. We also managed several duck species and a Great Crested Grebe teaching its humbug youngster what to do with a fish after capturing it - not a very successful lesson so the adult ate the fish. Very cute Blue tit and flying Swan and Grey Heron completed the sightings.