I met up with Di in Nettleton Village mid morning and then we dove on the short distance to the entrance to the wood. It was a lovely morning with pleasant sunny intervals as we shouldered our camera bags and set off along the main path into the wood. This was Di's first visit and I was looking forward to introducing her to what has become one of our favourite woods.
We walked into Forest England's Long Wood and headed off along a path that Heather and I had not been along before. This took us fairly swiftly through the scots pines and into the thick broad leaved woodland of Nettleton Wood itself; here mainly young birch with some oak and other species. We were delighted to find a good colony of purple amethyst deceiver, a fungal species I had not come across before. The younger specimens were, all over, an intense, almost luminous amethyst violet. Older individuals tend to fade to a violet/grey as they open up. Along this section we also came across some very large horse's hoof fungus growing on dead silver birch trunks. This species was once used to extract amadou, once used as tinder for firelighting. Click here for more information
We continued the towards the A46 that we could hear in the distance, the path gradually taking a southerly line. Unfortunately, either the path ran out or we lost it but we had a couple of hundred yards of vegetation bashing to find our way out to the main track leading down to the scout camp. This track is lined with beeches and oaks and which are beginning to colour up nicely as the season moves on.
From the scout camp we reversed my usual route through the more ancient birch and oak woodland, coming across the same patch of fly agarics as I had discovered on my previous visit. Quite a few were damaged but we found enough to photograph.
Time was moving on and we headed fairly swiftly back to the cars to complete an excellent walk.
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