Fungus Foray

About 3 years ago we went on a guided walk from the Ranger Service in Nowton Park looking for mushrooms. Ever since then, when it gets to autumn, we start mushroom hunting. With August being so Wet, wet, wet, we are expecting this to be a bumper year. Now the best place we have found for both quantity and variety, is Brandon Country Park, so we thought we would go there and see what we could find. We were not disappointed.

Since the last time we were there, the new bigger and better visitor centre has opened.

Inside there is a new tea room and displays of the history of the park. This includes a panel with holes you can put your hands in to feel "Who lives here now". The little ones loved that!

Anyway, we went on the orange walk, which goes through varied types of habitat. It was slow going. Every few feet came the shout of "Mushrooooom!" from somebody. Here is a small sample of what we saw.

I think this is sulphur tuft, but we forgot to bring our basket to collect samples to take home for proper identification.

This may be a chanterelle...

...but I suspect it to be a false chanterelle as it is more orange than yellow.

There are numerous old tree stumps in the woods, which are great sites for colonies to grow. Here is one of sulphur tuft.

It wasn't really night time - I just had to use flash because it was a little gloomy.

We also saw many other species including (probably) Tree Ear, Red-cracked Boletus, Puff-balls, Amethyst Deceivers, Slippery Jacks and Russulas.

Oh, and by the way, in the open heathland areas of the park the heather is fully out and smelling beautiful.