Pam Crofts identifying fungus with ‘Peachy Steve’ looking on.
Nine of us including ‘Peachy Steve’ and Sarah from Calderdale, accompanied by Meg the dog, joined in our 2020 fungi hunt. We were blessed with lovely autumnal weather as we set off from Watergrove carpark to Turn Slack Clough. Along the way had a quick foray in the memorial wood where surprisingly we found 10 different species – which was only surprising because they had all been hiding when we recced the area the previous Sunday!
Scarlet Caterpillar Club
We then continued straight to Turn Slack Clough, trying our best not to get distracted along the way as we knew our time would be well spent in that area. Working in our two ‘bubbles’ we searched for fungi and using our numbered flags (knitting needles with red and white tape attached) pinpointed any found, so that both groups and Peachy Steve could also find and identify them. We weren’t disappointed. Despite the dry weather we found another 24 species including the interesting Scarlet Caterpillar Cordyceps militaris, where the mycelium feeds on dead larvae and pupae of butterflies and moths. However, illustrating just how fickle fungi can be, the Smoky Spindles Clavaria fumosa, that we’d found on our recce had disappeared.
The highlight of the day had to be finding the Yellowfoot waxcap, Cuphophyllus flavipes previously Hygrocybe flavipes, a rarer species that may not have been previously recorded in the area.
Immense thanks go to Peachy Steve and Sarah without whom we’d still be up there trying to identify what we found.