Last Sunday my main objective was to see Short-eared Owls and, in some respects, I was successful in this. However, I did stop off at three of my Little Owl sites on the way.
Nothing was seen at LO Site No.02. At the second (my Site No.16) I didn't see any owls either, but could not resist taking an image of this Blue Tit in full sun.
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| Blue Tit - near Snarestone |
At my LO Site No.03, one of the owls was sitting out on the nest tree. Unfortunately this still has its leaves, and the only way to get a relatively unobstructed view was to directly approach the bird - a sure-fire way of disturbing it if I got too close! I thought I'd gauged my approach distance well, but I was wrong, and the bird departed. You can see how well this bird blends into its environment here, particularly in the last image.
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| Little Owl - my Site No.03 |
Anyway - to the main subject of this post! Where the Short-eared Owls were on Sunday I was struck by the number and variety of fungi. Now I know practically nothing about fungi, so have only been able to positively identify one type - the Fly Agaric, shown below.
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| Fly Agaric |
This next one was in abundance on a large area of grass. It was growing in rings, and the young growths looked like the type of mushroom you might find in a supermarket. However, the mature ones looked very different, with flat heads and white with a hint of blue and purple in colour. Any suggestions?
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| Unidentified Fungus 'A' |
The next one looked a bit phallic, but I can't identify it from my fungus book. Again any help would be appreciated. I only found one stand of these! They were in stony ground beside the grass area.
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| Unidentified Fungus 'B' |
The last fungus that I photographed (I saw plenty of others, however) was close to the previous one, and again I only saw one stand of these. I suspect that these are of the Hygrocybe (Waxcap) type, but the specifics I have no idea about.
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| Unidentified Fungus 'C' |
Any advice on these fungi - other than exhortations to try eating the first - would be much appreciated!
Great Blue Tit shot Richard - so sharp and in nice light. Like you say, the owl is so well camouflaged (thank goodness for spell check), it's no wonder I've only ever seen a handful of Little Owls. Lovely shots of the owl too. Good luck with the shorties.
ReplyDeleteThank you Christian. Yep - might not have spotted that LO if I didn't know where to look!!
ReplyDeleteNot sure when I'm going to get out for SEOs as I've started another garden project - this time a lean-to shed from scratch! I'm a real sucker for taking on these things when I could be out looking for owls.