Blog

A tale of two hedges in the South Downs

Daniel Greenwood3 Comments

Amberley, West Sussex, February 2023

The light was low over the Arun valley. To the south the Sussex coast was a band of grey concrete, the horizon between sky and sea broken only by the pale sticks of the offshore wind farms. The Isle of Wight rested out at sea to the west like a great sleeping sloth.

The Arun’s floodplain had traces of silver, the remains of January floods. The rain had gone quiet in recent weeks, and so the wetlands were receding back to the river.

The birds were quiet, too. Every now and then a small flock broke and reformed in leafless branches, possibly linnets, goldfinches, chaffinches, it was hard to tell. A red kite followed the crests of the Downs for much of the seven I walked along the South Downs Way that day.

When I first turned off the main road onto the trail, I saw a couple planting out the fresh green leaves of cherry laurel, no doubt to screen their farmland. I gasped but said nothing. They worked at speed, focused intently on their planting. 

Cherry laurel is one of the most invasive and ecologically destructive shop-bought species in the UK. I’ve spent much of my recent working life removing it from oak woods. I firmly believe it should be banned from sale. Holly and yew do just as good a job as screening hedges and are nowhere near as destructive. England’s most ecologically rich and diverse woodlands are usually oak, a tree that loses out every single time to cherry laurel. It can also become established in downlands, of which the South Downs are famous.

A couple of weeks ago I was working with a group of volunteers pulling cherry laurel saplings from an ancient oak woodland that holds a diversity of broad-leaved tree species, namely: oak, ash, wych elm, hazel, holly, yew, field maple, hawthorn, guelder rose, and more. Where cherry laurel has become established in this woodland, all of these species would disappear without intervention. So the task was very clear – remove the self-seeded laurel saplings before they become established and reduce the woodland to a monoculture of one species.

That is the fundamental issue with monocultures of invasive species: the diversity of plants, fungi and animals dies out. That is bad for everyone and everything, even laurel eventually.

This is a tree that originates in the Balkans and is available in most garden centres as a quick-growing, glossy evergreen to create a screen in a garden. It’s also toxic.

Of course there are many species which have toxic chemicals in them, and humans are experts at introducing them to the environment, but I’ve personally felt the impact of laurel’s toxicity. 

Some years ago I somehow got a very small laurel splinter into the vein in my wrist. The following day my wrist swelled-up and a line appeared down the middle-underside of my forearm from the site of the splinter. I went to the accident and emergency and was forwarded through to a care unit where they injected my hand with antibiotics and took several tests, including an ECG. They puzzled over the issue and sent me home with a prescription of more antibiotics. Laurel wasn’t even on their register of toxic plants on that December day in 2017. The infection dropped away after the NHS’s treatment and a few weeks later a miniscule, redundant piece of laurel splinter appeared from my wrist.

Cherry laurel contains cyanide in its leaves and is used by entomologists, or so I’ve heard, to create kill jars for trapping invertebrates. That said, yew is of course also toxic, and the cherry family (which laurel resides in) holds cyanide as a defence mechanism in many of its relatives. The laurel is just doing what’s in its nature, its our role in spreading it to places where it causes harm that is an issue.

Along the South Downs Way, there was much better news. For miles I observed a trench dug into a farmer’s field and saplings of hawthorn and other native hedgerow species planted. This new hedgerow spread for several miles, an incredible contribution from the farmer, or perhaps volunteers who had been involved. Britain has lost 50% of its native mixed hedgerows since the Second World War and, in a landscape home to declining farmland birds like corn bunting and yellowhammer, this new habitat will make a huge difference.

In this case, the difference will be a positive one.

Thanks for reading.

The South Downs

Snowy disco fungus ⛄

Daniel GreenwoodLeave a comment

Dulwich, London, January 2023

I’ve helped build a lot of ‘dead hedges’ in my time. Basically ‘fences’ of wood and branches piled between two posts. They happen to be particularly supportive of fungi, along with amphibians and sometimes even nesting birds.

Whilst constructing one on a chilly January afternoon I noticed one of the logs had a smattering of cup fungi. Looking more closely I guessed that these were a type of cup fungus known as snowy disco (Lachnum virgineum). It’s one of the fungus names that really makes people smile, and not in a weird way for once.

Then again, it does sound like a night club in Reykjavic.

I referred to my fungi tomes for more information on the snowy disco, and found that there were actually rather a lot of these tiny but very classy-looking fungi in Europe.

Cup fungi are a different group to the typical gilled mushrooms or ‘basidiomycetes’ that drop spores. The cup fungi are ‘ascomycetes’ – the type found in lichen complexes – shoot their spores from an ‘ascus’ (plural – ‘asci’) instead.

It’s just another reminder that for those who can, it’s a much better environmental option to leave fallen wood in a woodland so the disco can do its thing.

Thanks for reading.

Fungi

The deep blue sea comes inland 🌊

Daniel Greenwood1 Comment

Pulborough Brooks, West Sussex, January 2023

A lot of rain has fallen in Britain in January. One way I like to gauge just how much, is to visit the wetlands around Pulborough and Amberley in West Sussex.

In the winter months, roads are routinely closed as the Arun breaks its banks, doing what it used to without much issue. On the morning of Friday 13th January, the green fields of the Arun valley were a deep, oceanic blue.

It’s rare in England that you get to see nature’s raw, awesome power. When you do, it’s not always a good thing. Seeing water flooding the landscape as it should, where it won’t destroy homes, is easier to enjoy.

Towards Pulborough, the flooded fields were speckled with hundreds of ducks: mallard, shoveler, widgeon. The buildings of Pulborough town looked ready to slip down into the deep blue sea.

On the human-made islands lapwings contended with ducks for a spot on the bank. Elsewhere I overheard a man point out a snipe tucked away between rushes – ‘you can see it with the naked eye,’ he said.

Sure enough, there it was but 25ft away inside the fenced wetland. I wonder what it must have made of its small, safe spot, out there among the winter floodwaters.

Thanks for reading.

Sussex Weald

Salmon egg slime mould 🐟

Daniel GreenwoodLeave a comment

This is not a fungi post. If anything, it’s probably closer to animals. It also may exhibit signs of memory despite not having a brain. Sounds like you’re in the right place.

Tuesday 10th January 2023 was one of those awful January days in London. It rained a lot, was windy, and there was no direct sunlight to bask in.

Add to this the fact that the night before a fireball enjoyed a spectacular demise in the night sky, and was easy to view across much of the UK. At the time – 20:00 GMT – I was outside, in the dark, being distracted by the massive moon and a neighbour saying she didn’t want to run me over. Somehow, I missed the fireball and lived to hear about it on the radio the next morning.

Anyway, back down to Earth. Though the woods can be ghastly at this time of year, I find them to be a decent shout for slime moulds. Not to be proven wrong, I was proved right by the sight of little (read: tiny) orange beans at the path edge on an old oak log.

These little droplets of tangerine dream are commonly known by slime people as salmon eggs. It is amazing how these declining fish can fight their way up through places where there are no rivers, to lay their eggs in a bit of wood.

You know that was a joke, yes?

Slime moulds thrive in damp, dark places, usually in decaying wood that has been saturated by winter rainfall.

Elsewhere, the smaller polypores of turkeytail and the like were ‘showing nicely’ as the birders say, though rarely of a turkey’s tail around here.

Thanks for reading.

Macro | Fungi

Recent posts

Praying for Everton’s survival among the wildflowers ⚽

On Sunday 28th May I forced myself, though tired, to go for a walk in the Arun valley in the South Downs. The aim was to try and distract myself from Everton’s final day game against Bournemouth, where my team could be relegated from the top division of English football for the first time in…

A spring epistrophe? 🐝

Another week of some sun, some showers, and some temperatures that got close to freezing. That sentence may turn out to be a spring epistrophe, but more of that later. In Scotland it reached as low as -5C. April 2023 has been a mishmash of seasons. Here’s what I encountered in my garden on 22nd…

SOLVED: Mystery sea creature drama in Worthing 🦀

Daniel GreenwoodLeave a comment

A new year walk on a very busy stretch of the West Sussex coastline. Proof, if you needed it, that I can do watery blogs.

Now, I am a total novice when it comes to marine ecosystems. I know mostly where the sea is and that the moon has convinced it to sway back and forth. It’s also made of water, among other things.

When it comes to crabs, however, nah.

My partner is a beach scourerer, snapping into squirrel-of-the-shore the moment she steps foot on a beach. She found this bizarre-looking shell/casing/wild packaging. I took a pic and then popped it onto iNaturalist. No dice.

I asked ‘marine ppl’ on Twitter. It appears this kind of person is particularly active on a Monday evening! Many replies later it turned out that it was a likely reproductive pouch of a female spiny spider crab. Thanks to everyone who helped.

Interestingly, a couple of other people had posted the exact same thing on the Worthing coastline in recent days. It shows the power of social media for community science and ecological learning, not just the misinformation, hate and division it seems famous for.

Sometimes iNaturalist doesn’t get the job done, often because the photos are technically inadequate. The very active ‘nature communities’ on Twitter can reach many people with helpful info, and very quickly. I find that with identification it’s a matter of several avenues of knowledge and information. In the same way that there is no one winning wildlife field guide, and definitely not for fungi.

On another note, I was kicking myself after forgetting to try and find Mercury and Venus slipping away with the Sun out at sea. Then again, a band of cloud on the horizon may have blocked any views. Maybe another time.

Thanks for reading.

Winter oyster mushrooms 🍄

Daniel Greenwood2 Comments

A chilly afternoon in the Weald of West Sussex on one of those days in early January when you remember their names again. “Moonday” 9th January 2023 was appropriate seeing as the famous old block of cheese was up in the sky that night, howling back down to us. A wolf moon, indeed.

Moons are easier to come by than ‘shrooms, the main focus of my walk around a wet woodland reserve where the river ran free of its banks, merging among poplars like something from prehistory (i.e. no Internet).

A boardwalk cuts the edge of the wetlands where I usually expect to find velvet shank mushrooms. Along with scarlet elf cup, this is one of the winter gems of the fungal kingdom in Northern Europe. In truth, I didn’t find any that I could photograph without having to (theoretically) enter into a wetsuit or small boat.

Instead it was a coastal species that proved easiest to snap, if only in name. One of my favourite Twitter accounts and reader of this blog recently posted some oyster mushroom photos. Another timeline glimpse made me think – this is a seasonal trend, and I should keep an eye out in real life.

They’re a beautiful fungus with dark, purple-grey tops and pale, almost white gills underneath. They’re edible, but I was just there for the pics. You can buy them in the shops or grow them yourself at home. Another friend/regular reader even has them growing in her garden from timber sleepers. Well jel.

One of my favourite actual, single funguses lives here. I’m pretty sure it’s a willow bracket, growing from the bottom of a branch like a hat plucked off someone’s head below/a UFO/some kind of weird leather cushion from the Victorian period.

It makes me laugh every single time. A reminder: if some part of nature isn’t humouring you, “you’re not doing it right”.

Thanks for reading.

Fungi | Sussex Weald

Recent posts

Is this England’s national mushroom? 🍄

On a recent visit to the National Trust’s Nymans Gardens I spotted some big, cream-coloured things in the lawns near the car park. No, these were not scones or cream cakes, or even pasties discarded by visitors.

What this hoverfly doesn’t know 🐝

On Sunday 16th April my garden thermometer (kept in the shade, don’t worry) read 16C, and the garden was alive. Here’s what I found in the space of about half an hour.

Bogshrooms, and a life lived wild and free 🍄🐐

I went for an evening walk down the old trackway to the foot of the mountain. The track was flooded, meaning that without wellies I had to find tussocks and rocks to move further. Where the track turned, I noticed a ram of some kind grazing up ahead. After a time, I realised it was…

Unlocking Landscapes podcast: Walking with ravens in the Ox Mountains 🇮🇪

Daniel GreenwoodLeave a comment

It’s January 2023 and my podcast, Unlocking Landscapes, is 2 years old! Thanks to everyone who has contributed and supported so far.

I do this podcast at my own cost so if you want to support it (it costs a basic £100 annually to host my Podbean account) you can ‘buy me a coffee/camomile’ here: https://ko-fi.com/djgwild

I haven’t posted for a while, mainly for professional and technical reasons. The biggest issue is that I needed to upgrade my ailing desktop PC, which I have now done. It’s in much better shape now, so no more IT excuses but hopefully more podcasts.

You can listen via YouTube here:

Or via the Podbean stream here:

In September I spent a week in Mayo in Ireland and recorded two podcasts. One is an early evening walk in the Ox Mountains, encountering rickety gates and performing ravens. The second one (still to come) is a walk with Seán Lysaght, which I can’t wait to share with you. I’ve been a big fan of Seán’s writing for over a decade, so it was a massive honour to spend an afternoon walking with him. More on that one soon!

In the Ox Mountains I go for a walk, describing the surrounding landscape, capturing two ravens (acoustically) as they fly close by from where the breed in the hills. I also talk a bit about issues with cottages which aren’t connected to mains water, amongst many other things.

Here are the reference points:

Thanks for listening!

Unlocking Landscapes podcast:

Night photography: Jupiter snuggles up to the Moon 🪐

Daniel Greenwood2 Comments

An article popped up recently highlighting the chance to see several planets in the sky at once. On the evening of the 29th December 2022, I took out my camera and tripod to see what was happening out there in the garden. Turns out, there was quite a lot going on!

I had actually spent the late afternoon admiring the half moon, with Jupiter in close attendance (below). I was down by the river Arun in the town of Arundel, the sun creating a gentle, pastel-coloured twilight.

Later on in my garden, I ticked off a couple of other planets with the help of my camera, binoculars and the phone app Stellarium. This app has helped me to learn loads, though I struggle to remember it all, of course.

Just visible over an extension of a neighbouring house was Saturn (above, top right), ringless to my eye and the camera’s lens. I had managed to get a rough image of it in the past with rings just about visible.

Mars was prominent in the sky, hanging out in the eardrum of Taurus, earwax coloured, too. I used the nearby Pleiades to attempt to find Uranus, something much more difficult to see because of a lack of colour definition or prominence in the night sky.

Compare with image below to identify Uranus (best to click/expand)

Screenshot from Stellarium, showing the Pleiades on the left, the ^ roof of three stars, and then Uranus

Using the pitched rooftop shape of a trio of stars (Tau Arietis, Zeta Arietis, and Botein) I found a wonky cross shape. In the middle of the cross was Uranus, indistinguishable in colour from those close by. This is a first for me, which is always a lovely thing.

Far more visually dramatic was the sudden burst of a meteor in Taurus, shooting upwards to the south-east. A little researched revealed this to be one of the Quadrantids, a meteor shower that peaked on the 3rd January 2023 in the Northern Hemisphere.

Thanks for reading.

Night photography

Recent posts

Poetry: nature writing book titles they won’t publish

My life inside a snail shell The Funguy: How suggesting I’m into psychedelics made me interesting to other peopleLiving in a badger sett for 15 minutes and other memories Dog poo diaries: a guide to chucking bags at treesMemoirs of a sexist birder: volume 9 and still they won’t edit me Seagull: a day in…

Spring 2023 blog update

Hello! I wanted to do a blog update post as I have fallen behind with writing and photography, but am still in existence. Believe me it pains me not having the time or mental space to write anything, possibly more than it pains you to read this blog. I’ve just finished working on a short-term…

Five pines at Pulborough 🌲

Daniel Greenwood1 Comment

Pulborough Brooks, West Sussex, Friday 16th December 2022

I arrived at Pulborough Brooks as the sun began to rise over Wiggonholt, the heath on the hill.

There are five pine trees that stand together in the open heath, I always seek them out in this light.

Frost encrusted everything where the sun was yet to reach. Young birches were thick with hoar frost, the yellow leaves of oaks held an edge of ice flakes.

There was little to hear, so much so that even a goldcrest moving through brambles made a sound.

Further round the hill the Highland Cattle were grazing among the frozen bracken. They looked so at home in their Viking get-up, heavy coats whitened by the temperatures. At 8am it was -5.

Out onto the reserve a winter landscape opened out: rock-hard fields with a herd of deer making a break for it; frozen ponds and lakes without ducks and wading birds; and in the distance the South Downs almost hidden by a rising mist.

Thanks for reading.

Sussex Weald | Photography

Recent posts:

Apaches over the Downs

A walk from Steyning, along the field edge with those lumpy Downs caught in a smoke-like haze. The sun beat over the hilltops, the trees naked, grey and brown without leaves.

A tale of two hedges in the South Downs

The light was low over the Arun valley. To the south the Sussex coast was a band of grey concrete, the horizon between sky and sea broken only by the pale sticks of the offshore wind farms. The Isle of Wight rested out at sea to the west like a great sleeping sloth.

Wishing you a very jelly Christmas 🧠

Daniel Greenwood2 Comments

On a recent visit to Streatham Common in SE London, I was taken aback by the number of December mushrooms.

In SE England we’ve switched from -5 one day, to 12C a few days later. The seasons seem to be collapsing around us, and then reviving themselves. It feels like the only reliability we may have in nature is the amount of light. At this point the Earth isn’t moving off on a different course anytime soon.

Billionaires with ideas need not reply.

Looking through the Common’s oak woodlands I was quite taken by a standing dead oak tree. It was such an unusual shape and it was hard to tell if it was still alive. It wasn’t, in the conventional sense.

Moving around the tree I noticed the frills of what looked to me to be a brain fungus and what iNaturalist has confirmed as Phaeotremella frondosa. It’s what keeps me looking again and again for this strange stuff. It is always a surprise, and so varied and diverse that each week can provide you with something different.

And with that, I would like to say thank you to everyone who has read and/or commented on my blogs this year. I really appreciate the support and interest.

My website’s traffic boomed this autumn as some of my fungi posts appear to have made it into search engines and held prominent positions. That isn’t massively important to me, but it is quite funny to watch readers increase almost in sync with mushrooms in the woods.

Writing and posting photos on here is a massive anchor for me. If I could do this everyday, I would. I will try my best to keep it going strong in 2023.

Thanks, as ever, for reading. Wishing everyone a peaceful and restful Christmas and New Year.

Slava Ukraini 🇺🇦

Daniel