Mike's Natural Musings: Lincolnshire Woodlands

Showing posts with label Lincolnshire Woodlands. Show all posts

Monday, 12 April 2021

A Travelling Around Sort of a Day

It was very pleasant drifting around the Wolds looking for spring hares but I was out of luck so headed to Scallows for my sandwiches and a wander around the wood. It was beautiful just to be in the wood good to see dog's mercury carpeting the bottom end of the wood. The ramsons is still looking fresh but I resisted picking any more; we still have pesto and frozen soup and more frozen leaves. The buzzard pair drifted over the wood and were very vocal; hopefully I shall find where they are nesting, I think in the tall larches in front of the hide.

Eventually I decided to head for The Fitties to see if there were any dabchicks on the lagoons. As I approached the coast it was evident that there had been a shower and more or less as I parked up it clouded over, began to rain, then sleet, snow and finally hail. The squall quickly passed over and the sun came out again providing fantastic light and dramatic skies. Unfortunately there were no dabchicks but I had good views of a couple of teal and an egret.

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Pheasant.

The Wolds

Dogs Mercury

The Wood

The Wood still has a winter look

The Wood

The path to the hide

Signs of spring

After to storm, Tetney Marshes

Wood pigeon

Herring Gulls

Receding storm over Tetney Marsh

Saturday, 7 November 2020

More Autumn Colours and Fungi in Nettleton Woods

Having had my pacemaker fitted on 28th October and struggled with a bad back since, I was suffering from cabin fever, so persuaded the very patient Mrs Pickwell to drive me to Nettleton Wood to catch the last of the autumn colour. The less said about the back pain during our walk the better. The woods were looking stunning, although the avenue of beeches along the drive to the scout camp were past their best. There were still a few fungi but the fly agarics and amethyst deceivers appeared to have finished.

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Wednesday, 14 October 2020

Fungus Foray in Nettleton Wood

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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