Chris Lansdell's Birding & Nature Diary: November 2019

Horsey, 29 November 2019

After a brief trip to Go Outdoors in Norwich to buy a winter wooly hat (!) we set off for east Norfolk for the rest of the day. On our way to the coast a flock of 18 Common Cranes showed nicely in a stubble field between Acle Bridge and Billockby but a pair of geese with them were too far away to id with just bins. I strongly suspected Tundra Bean but they will have to remain as ones that got away.

Then it was on to Horsey were we indulged ourselves with some Grey Seal photography. Over the years the colony has gone from strength to strength and the beach was full of seals as far as the eye could see in both directions. The pup count so far is an incredible 1414! Making the long walk south as far as the plantation was worth the effort. Scorching out onto the grazing marsh to check out the corvid flock gave me distant views of the Hooded Crow and then a 'gronking' behind me alerted me to the Raven which gave me a good fly-past as it headed from the beach area out onto the marsh. Other than a solitary Sanderling on the beach and a Fieldfare 'in-off' that was pretty much it.

Lunch in Poppylands then preceded a vigil at Winterton where the Eagle Owl failed to show in the cricket pitch area with just flocks of 7 and 32 Pink-footed Geese and a Common Buzzard seen.

Common Cranes

Grey Seals

Raven

Earthstars in Earlham Cemetery, 23 November 2019

I was lucky enough to have Ian Senior as my personal guide around his local patch of Earlham Cemetery in Norwich yesterday. It followed bumping into him by chance the previous evening at a Norfolk Butterfly Conservation talk.

The main things I wanted to see were earthstars and Ian was able to kindly show me both Striated Earthstars and Sessile Eartstars which were excellent. That wasn't it by any means though as we did a good walk all around the lovely gothic cemetery clocking up scarcities like Jellybaby, an Earthtongue sp, Orange Cup, Southern Bracket, Deathcap, Giant Polypore, Sulphur Knight, loads of Buttercaps and Variable Oysterling as well as a great range of waxcaps including Blackening Waxcap, Snowy Waxcap, Parrot Waxcap, Meadow Waxcap and the curious Slimy Waxcap. Into the bargain Ian also showed me the strange unidentifiled fungal mass that he found growing on a blewit (the bottom picture below). It is so odd that samples have been sent to Kew for analysis!

Birdwise it was great to hear calling Nuthatch which not so very long ago had virtually died out in the Norwich area.

Striated Earthstar

Sessile Earthstars

Jellybaby

Earthtongue sp

Orange Cup

Blackening and Snowy Waxcap growing side by side

Blackening Waxcap

Meadow Waxcap

Parrot Waxcap

Slimy Waxcap

Southern Bracket

Sulphur Knight

Variable Oysterling

Unidentified fungal mass!

Wortham Ling, 17 November 2019

Sorry to bore you all but more fungi I'm afraid! I'll keep it to a minimum though because this was a quick visit and walk at Wortham Ling near Diss. Belinda had been given some very confusing directions to a couple of fungi and with a huge slice of luck (and perseverance) we managed to find them! They were the rare (and very poisonous) Panthercap and locally scarce Moor Club (aka Moor Coral). Our informant had photographed them a week ago and had no idea what they were. We also found a few other nice bits and pieces and marvelled at the sheer numbers of Fly Agarics

Panthercap

Moor Club

Angel Bonnet

galerina sp, probably Moss Bell

Hare's Ears

Blusher

Witches Butter

Purple Jellydisc

Fly Agaric

Scurfy Deceiver

Crostwright Heath Fungus Foray, 16 November 2019

After a bit of a heavy Friday night at at function at Carrow Road it was off to Crostwright Heath near Honing the following morning from Mum and Dad's. It was the last full meet up of the year for the Norfolk Fungus Study Group. This time Meg Miller, James Emerson and Jeremy Bartlett joined the fray and with rather pleasant autumnal weather it was a great few hours exploring this site which was a new one for me. It consisted of a mixture of broadleafed woodland and heath dominated by gorse and heather.

The official list is not yet out but the following photographs were some of the nicer or new things which I managed to get pictures of. Highlights for me were the outrageous looking Dog Stinkhorn, the rare Fenugreek Stalkball (which really does smell of fenugreek!) and a huge patch of Leafy Brain.