I’ve started recording episodes again for my podcast Unlocking Landscapes. The latest episode is one about ivy and trees, a subject I find very interesting – I know a lot of people do.
You can listen here on YouTube or just search on any podcast-streaming platform:
The episode is only ten minutes and covers the following:
What ivy looks like
The ecology of ivy
Managing ivy on trees
Myths and misinformation about ivy
When people commit crimes against ivy(!)
Wildlife supported by ivy
My aim is to post once a quarter, recordings to take place outdoors, be quite focused and to be around 10 minutes long.
I spent the end of April in Dartmoor National Park, but not quite staying on Dartmoor as the initiated would say. It was unseasonably dry and warm, resulting in a large moor-fire days after we left. Looking at the state of the moor (below) it was hardly surprising. Underfoot it was tinder dry.
I had some time to take a few purist macro images, some with a does-it-all lens and some with my phone. Here are the results.
The first stop was Devon Wildlife Trust’s Dart Valley Nature Reserve. We often sit here and take in the scenery and birdsong. It’s special.
Gorse was flowering widely across Dartmoor. It’s also know as ‘chag’ historically on Dartmoor, giving the name to the village of Chagford.
Hawthorn was leafing across the landscape, an iconic moorland tree in Devon. The leaves are edible when young and have been known in the past as ‘bread and butter’.
Ferns were uncoiling in the more shaded areas. I think this is hard fern.
Juniper haircap moss is one that produces its ‘sporophyte’ in April. The very dry mosses were still able to do their thing.
Stonecrops I’m not expert on, but you can see their succulent-ness up close.
This solitary wasp of some kind was on my trousers. It was really small, as you can see from the threading of the fabric.
They’re not great images but this jumping spider arrived on my fleece. I would need extension tubes for better close-ups. It’s one of the heliophanus species.
I was really drawn to the pond skaters making merry in the side pools by the river bank. It was only when I took some photos that I saw that they were actually mating. The final image focuses on their legs as they bend the surface of the water to stay afloat.
Later in the week we did a long walk around Lustleigh, through the picturesque bluebell rainforests above the River Bovey. These woods are spectacular and very rich in wildlife.
Wild garlic was in flower, mainly found along the lanes rather than deep in the woodland.
Dartmoor is a good place for cool beetles. This violet oil beetle was nibbling on some lesser celandine leaves. This is a phone pic, cropped, so not perfect focus or detail.
My hiking companion miraculously found this long-horn beetle on one of the many mossy oaks we passed. It’s a greater thorn-tipped longhorn beetle.
There was a large birch tree that had fallen across a path, and just as I was about to slide over it I saw my first ever rhinoceros beetle on UK soil. Again I only really could get a phone pic, but it still did a reasonable job.
Elsewhere the early purple orchids were flowering. They are such beautiful plants.
And finally, on another walk near South Zeal I managed to get a few decent images of a species from one of my favourite bee families – the nomad bees. This could be a flavous nomad bee, but I’m not sure. They are beautiful and quite hard to catch in time for a photo.
I’m still dining out on mid-April at the moment, it’s such a lovely time of year.
The broom (Cytisus scoparius) we planted several years ago has bloomed magnificently this year. It’s been a treat to both smell, and to see it attract a whole range of pollinators.
Dandelions have been all over social media recently with the recipes for ‘dandelion honey’. I am reliably informed that it’s jam or syrup rather than honey because you’re not a bee. It’s good that people are becoming more aware of dandelions which are incredibly important for pollinators.
We’ve expanded our berry bed in the garden to include an extra redcurrant, blueberry and gooseberry. Above are the lovely flowers of redcurrant.
My little laid hazel hedge is coming along nicely. These fresh red stems are a welcome sign.
As part of the hedge I’ve planted a couple of oaks that have been in pots in our garden for a number of years. One of the oaks is from my grandmother-in-law’s garden near Epping Forest, the other grown from an acorn from Dulwich Wood. I love the redness of the leaves when they first appear, whether or not these are tannins I would need to check the science.
Elsewhere the sycamore is now leafing. Soon these will be sticky with aphid honeydew. The sparrows and blue tits will be hoovering the aphids up to feed their nestlings.
Speaking of those little devils, our swift box has been moved-into after 3 years of waiting for something to happen. Of course it would be best if swifts were there, but sparrows are also red-listed and their habitat is being lost as people are forcing them out of the eaves. Much of that is probably unintentional, but it’s still something we need to look at.
In the invertebrate world, the droneflies have calmed down a bit and are willing to pose for their macro close-up. This is probably a tapered dronefly (Eristalis pertinax).
This is my first decent set of images of a solitary bee this year. It’s probably one of the mining bees (Andrena) but I don’t have an ID yet.
Another solitary bee species had found its way into our living room. I took a few photos before letting the little bee back out into the world.
After eating an apple one evening I decided to copy what my dad was always doing, and plant some seeds. I potted a couple of apple pips in compost and left them on the windowsill.
The pips began to grow into little seedlings. I was astonished, these pips just had to drop into some soil and trees grew.
There’s no doubt to me that this experience, along with time spent under a hawthorn and small willow tree in my parents’ garden as a child, helped me to learn to love trees. It’s the dynamism, the strength, the age, the ability to grow from seemingly nothing we could survive on.
The apple tree matured, was re-potted, and was eventually delivered to me by my parents in 2018 when I moved to Sussex. It’s about 2 metres tall and just sits in its pot, not really doing much, putting out leaves, letting the seasons come and go.
As far as I’ve known, this tree will never flower or produce fruit. That’s all I’ve ever read or been told. It needs to be grafted with some other apple, ready to produce fruit.
I blogged about the tree in 2021 as part of 30 Days Macro, when bees nectared from the leaves after they became curled up by farming ants(?) and drenched in aphid honeydew.
And so… the other morning I was sitting in my garden enjoying the spring sounds, smells, and sights of new flowers. I stood up and turned to go back inside when I saw a pink flower on the apple tree.
I couldn’t believe my eyes.
17 years of nothing, and then these bright pink and white petals appear.
It made me think of the passing of time, of all that’s happened, where I am in life. It reminded me of where the tree came from, that my dad’s annual sowing of seeds had inspired me to even consider putting that pip in the little pot of compost.
Will it produce fruit? I don’t know, I don’t actually eat apples anymore (too acidic)! I don’t even know what type of apple it is.
But it felt like a signal – life can surprise you – that trees are resilient, dynamic, and beautiful.
On Friday 11th April I was hanging out in the garden when I glanced over at the small container pond on our brick patio. It’s an old metal wash basin filled with plants and, well, water.
Birds bathe in it, foxes drink from it, and something rather special now lives in it.
The first thing I saw in the ‘pond’ were two eyes looking back at me, and two big arms and webbed hands (are they hands?) holding onto one of the plastic plant containers.
It’s been so dry for the time of year, wildlife is really suffering with the lack of water. If you have the chance to build any kind of pond you should do it! We don’t have enough space in our garden to dig a ‘proper pond’, but we have been able to use a container we bought at an antique dealer. Without it, where would the frog go?
Elsewhere I’ve noticed the number of drone flies has ebbed a bit, but there are still plenty around. This is probably a tapered-drone fly, a species of hoverfly.
Sitting on this piece of charcoal (which you may notice is now being colonised by a very small moss) was a little spider. iNaturalist has suggested this is a fox spider.
It’s rather cuddly isn’t it? No?
At night we’ve begun to notice a powerful fragrance around the house. It’s a bit like honeysuckle but is probably a cheesewood, a species of plant from New Zealand. This grows in a neighbouring garden but reaches over to us. It’s absolutely covered in pollinators and the smell- wow. It doesn’t seem to be invasive so could be a good option for your garden if you like pollinator-friendly shrubs.
I was sitting in my garden when a large, wasp-like insect zoomed into view. It dropped into the skimmia and began nectaring on the flowers.
‘Hornet!’ I called out, but trying to be quiet enough not to spook the insect. I captured these images, convinced it was a hornet, the first I had ever seen in my garden.
When I popped a crude phone photo (not the world class images above) onto iNaturalist I began to have second thoughts. The first suggestions were for a species of wasp, the median wasp. That is now the consensus, and so my hornet drought goes on. But it is a beautiful thing.
My house is quite old, built in the 1840s. The path outside our door is known as a ‘twitten’, a Sussex colloquial name for a little footpath. The path is bricked (like many of them are) and always flushes with spring flowers. Lesser celandine and grape hyacinth are two of the species that enjoy the margins.
Does this rose regrowth remind you of a certain American President?
A few holes have appeared in the lawn. I haven’t seen who created these mini-bunkers but I am confident they’re mining bees of some kind.
The red mason bees have been rather slow to appear this year and many of the bamboo slots are still sealed. Some of the bees have been hovering around the entrances, as above.
I took this photo of two – yes, two – collared doves with my macro lens. Macro lenses usually often can act as a telephoto lens because you need space between you and the thing you’re photographing to ensure you don’t spook the subject. The flag isn’t mine, as you may have guessed if you’ve ever met me or read this blog before 😉
The pansies are doing well in the milk churns, a good place to end.
Five years ago we were facing up to the Covid-19 lockdowns. In response to the stay-at-home orders I began a weekly macro blog, an assignment from the gods? No, just our Supreme Leader at the time Boris Johnson and his better half in Public Health Chris Whitty.
While I can’t promise weekly blogs due to work and life commitments, it’s definitely time to dust off the macro lens after its winter slumber and step out into the garden to see what’s happening!
As ever, there’s far more going on than you might think. I also think it’s important that we look at and try to understand invertebrates when this misinformation is coming from the leader of the country (I know it could be worse, but get your facts straight, folks).
We depend on nature and our ecosystems and their wildlife for our food, clean water, fresh air and function. Wildlife has a right to exist and the world does not revolve around our species.
The snails are roosting in our front porch. My wife was wondering if they might be too hot there, as the paint’s white and it can get quite sweltry in there.
It looks to me like something is going on with the shells and they may be roosting to grow their shells. It’s not something I know much about. Please let me know in the comments if you have any info 🙂
We have some nice pansies my wife planted out by our front door. You can see the bee drive-in here with the dark landing marks and the brush of hairs to ensure the pollen of other pansies are retrieved from a visiting bee.
The broom plant flowers in a subtle way, these little yellow petals appearing from the red sepals.
This is a common little fly that seems to stand around on leaves and petals for ages!
Their eyes are very cool, and I enjoyed the single spot in their wings as well. These flowers are some saxifrages my wife bought from the garden centre.
In January on a cold Saturday afternoon I laid or ‘plashed’ the hazel shrub I had planted out in our hedge. It’s a little hedge, but the usual shrub that made up the hedge has died back so I needed to take action. It’s so pleasing (‘pleaching’?) to see the hazel respond so well and new shoots to appear from the lain-down stems.
I also uprooted a sapling that a squirrel had cached as a seed, which is doing well. I planted this out around the time of frosts, which shows hazel’s hardiness. I did know that was the case, but it’s nice to see it come through.
The normal hedge I mentioned is this Skimmia japonica. It’s good for pollinators, no doubt. But it doesn’t seem to last well without pruning.
It was abuzz with drone flies as spring really began to arrive in mid-late March.
These drone flies (Eristalis) are probably the most common winged-insect in our garden at the moment. They’re quite funny I think.
Bay flowers promise so much, but they are quite modest really. I am hoping this provides some decent nectar for any invertebrate that needs it.
I spotted this little crab spider hanging out on one of my thermal t-shirts. It’s probably Misumena vatia, the most common of the crab spiders.
A cat monument in our garden in memory of our cat Kaiser who loved this spot in the flowerbed. The wolf spiders also love this spot because it gets so warm. The white stone of the cat is even warmer than the surrounding soil. I think this may be a male and a female wolf spider, with the male the smaller of the two, with the palps (dark spots at the front of its head, in the cat’s eye!).
The fence next to the cat monument was a helpful basking spot for the first nursery web spider I’ve seen so far this year.
The flowering of our magnolia is short and sharp, but these globular flowers are a delight. Magnolias are very old trees in evolutionary terms, and here’s to another year under their belts.
I’ve been making an effort to go for a walk in my local slice of the Sussex Weald before work in recent weeks. The impact it has on my brain, body and soul is profound, having lost my connection with woodland somewhat recently.
Early spring is a special time in woodland, watching the the leaves appear, the first spring birds, and the woodland flowers. It is so much better than those hot, shady and sterile days of summer, in my view.
The chiffchaffs have been arriving, but the song thrush rules this chunk of the Weald. Its repeated phrases echo through the still leafless branches.
Wild branches against ranks of pine and birch.
Those birches, growing on old heathland, waiting for the onset of new leaves.
A birch tree harassed by honeysuckle, catching the morning light.
A green beech tree with lots of moss and algae.
The ride, with pines reaching across on either side.
Silver birches among bluebell leaves.
An old beech tree.
Bluebell leaves appearing below a mess of beech twigs and old leaves.
The grassy banks of the woodland ride. I often hear firecrest singing along these edges where the ivy climbs and a few evergreen trees like the cypresses grow.
This is a showcase of the posh mushroom pics I gathered with my proper camera during a visit to the wonderful Dartmoor National Park in November 2024. Mad props to my wife who is chief squirrel during these Devonian photo forages.
The photos were taken on Sunday 10th November 2024.
I write these blogs in my spare time because I want to raise awareness about the beauty and diversity of fungi. If you enjoy reading them you can support my blog here.
A reminder that I am not encouraging people to pick or remove mushrooms in these areas. You could very easily clear all the mushrooms we saw within minutes. I think that would be sad because it would mean other people wouldn’t get to see them and learn or be inspired by them. I think with rare species like waxcaps that are featured here, we should be taking photos and submitting them to apps like iNaturalist or Plantlife’s waxcap campaign. In some areas that would be illegal anyway, due to site protections.
While I don’t believe 2024 will go down as a vintage mushroom season, there were a lot of lovely waxcaps to be found on the moor in a place we’ve been visiting since 2016. Moorlands seem to be quite good for waxcaps, not that I know why, and also for lichens because they are rocky, wet and the air is fresh.
I’ll post the images in chronological order for my own sanity.
This is the landscape where the fungi lived – moorland with a view towards the Teign estuary.
The first fungal find were these eyelash cups (Scutellinia) growing on animal dung! Plenty more dungi to come.
Waxcaps make up the crux of the mushrooms we found. These beauties are butter waxcaps (Hygrocybe ceracea).
Not to be outdone, some very photogenic sulphur tuft (Hypholoma fasciculare) were found as we climbed the moor.
These mottlegills (Panaeolus) are quite common in places with grazing livestock like Dartmoor ponies.
My best guess is that this was one of the moss bells (Galerina).
These lichens are beautiful. I don’t see them very often because I have to travel west see moorland. They’re probably gritty British soldier lichens (Cladonia floerkeana).
I’m unsure what this species is, but it’s a beauty.
As we approached the more remote moorland (in terms of people living out there) the waxcaps began to appear in the cropped turf. This is another example of how important grazing to some degree is, and how it mimics very ancient processes. These mushrooms would not grow in closed-canopy woodlands.
This is one of the red waxcaps, but I’m unsure if it’s honey waxcap or not. It looks too orange for scarlet waxcap.
This is one of several species under the umbrella of blackening waxcap or witches’ bonnet (Hygrocybe conica complex).
This is a species I only really see in the west of England or Ireland. It’s one of the dog lichens (Peltigera).
These are crimson waxcaps (Hygrocybe punicea), stunning mushrooms indeed. There were some young men passing by who stopped to admire the colours of these impressive shrooms.
I don’t have an identification yet for this gorgeous waxcap and the closest I can guess is a colour variation of parrot waxcap (Gliophorus psittacinus).
This is meadow waxcap (Hygrocybe pratensis), often fan-like, always best photographed from ground level.
I’m not up on my corals and suchlike, but these are probably in this family.
The walk ended in a little graveyard, great places for waxcaps, by the way. That was evidenced again by this clutch of what I would say were scarlet waxcaps (Hygrocybe coccinea).
Phew!
Thanks for reading.
I write these blogs in my spare time because I want to raise awareness about the beauty and diversity of fungi. If you enjoy reading themyou can support my blog here.
This time five years ago I was hunkering down into my Macro Monday blog series as the pandemic locked down on us all. Now we are at the short end of the lean mushroom season. Spring is about to, well, spring, so the temperatures will rise and fungi will fruit again in modest numbers.
With that in mind, I made a right fool of myself with my neighbour this week. But then again, at least I’m not threatening them with military invasion and putting tariffs on the bird identification information I share.
No, instead I got excited about what I thought was false puffball (Enteridium lycoperdon), a species of slime mould (not actually fungi, but growing in the same way and places) that can be observed at this time of year.
On the way out for my morning walk, I spotted some white mushrooming thing at the bottom of my neighbour’s fencepost. Wow, I thought, false puffball on our doorstep!
The organism was white, had appeared quite quickly, and was growing in a damp location on decaying wood. Perfect!
I sent some photos over to my neighbour to say what I’d seen. Obviously he had no idea what I was on about, and so he checked with his roofer who confirmed they had sprayed expanding foam (in two seriously random locations, in my defence) while working on the house the other day.
If false puffball is what it says it is, does that now mean that expanding foam is false false puffball?
For comparison, here’s the real thing from back in that fateful month of March 2020:
One thing I have learned from this process of misidentification is that my blog appears quite high up in the rankings on Google for ‘false puffball’. It comes at a time when Google emailed me to ask if they could feature some of my photos on their store blog and do an interview.
‘What’s in it for me and my phone,’ I asked.
One of the richest companies in the world, and it turns out they don’t want to pay to use your images or harness your knowledge and experience. What a bunch of puffballs. I hope you appreciate it’s the principle here that matters. Remember those, principles?
So it goes that the only way I have ever been paid as a photographer is when you lovely people ‘buy me coffee’ via my Ko-fi page. Thank you to everyone who has supported me.
Anyway, I hope Google like these absolutely stunning false puffball images. Shot on a Gaggle Tinsel 35c. Feel free to use guys! 🙂
Unlocking Landscapes 