A Cornucupia

 Fencepost of the Week #188

Star Slime

 Fencepost of the Week #187

This fencepost has been used as a butchering block by some bird feasting on frogs. The ground around was littered with discarded globs of star slime - the inedible jelly which frogs and toads lay their eggs in. At this time of year the slime does not yet contain the eggs, but if you look around near the slime, you can often find a blackish blobby mass of eggs.

 

Satiny Mossy Mound

 Fencepost of the Week #186

Common Earwig

 

Some close-ups of a common earwig - Forficula auricularia.

Scaly Hedgehog Mushroom

 

 

 

This is a scaly hedgehog mushroom - Sarcodon squamosus. British distribution is mostly restricted to the Caledonian pine forests. I found this one by Loch Garten. It can be used to produce some nice blue-green shades of fabric dye.

Little Orange Mushroom

 Fencepost of the Week #185

Usnea Clouds at Twilight

 Fencepost of the Week #184

 

False Puffball

 This is Reticularia lycoperdon the false puffball - it is a slime mould that fruits by producing a foamy mass that expands from cracks in the wood in which it lives. 

It then hardens and dries out. The pale, silvery cuticle cracks and falls away...

... to reveal the dusty brown spore mass which then gets carried away on the wind. (Photos sequence taken on 11th, 16th and 23rd of April)

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Below is a second sequence showing earlier stages of development - it begins as a globular mass before developing a cuticle. (Photos taken on 17th and 19th of April)

Adder Births 2020

 The female adder from this post on adder courtship from April has been sunning itself all summer at the same place by a local forestry track. I have been checking up on it most days and today it was ready to give birth to five tiny little snakes. They all seemed ready to shed their skin for the first time within minutes of being born.

New born adder - Vipera berus

New born adder - Vipera berus

New born adder - Vipera berus

New born adder - Vipera berus

New born adder - Vipera berus

The mother snake - looking a little bent out of shape, but recovering.

Wan Mossy Halo

Fencepost of the Week #183

 

Deconica coprophila

Deconica coprophila

Copy/paste Lizards

Fencepost of the Week #182

Small Copper

Lycaena phlaeas - Small Copper

 

Lycaena phlaeas - Small Copper

Horn of Plenty

Craterellus conucopioides - Horn of Plenty

Craterellus conucopioides - Horn of Plenty

Craterellus conucopioides - Horn of Plenty

Craterellus conucopioides - Horn of Plenty

Leccinum pseudoscabrum

Leccinum pseudoscabrum

Leccinum pseudoscabrum

Leccinum pseudoscabrum - a brown bolette which grows in association with hazel and hornbeam trees.

Cucumber Spiders

Araniella sp - Cucumber Spider. Golden egg sac off to the right.

Araniella sp - Cucumber Spider

Araniella sp - Cucumber Spider

Araniella sp - Cucumber Spider

Araniella sp - Cucumber Spider

Adder Courtship

Adders - Vipera berus

Here's some video footage of adders flirting and fighting over the last three days:

Engulfed in Gorse Thicket

Fencepost of the Week #181

Mossy Tumuli

Fencepost of the Week #180

Mouldering in the Spruce Woods

A rather precarious chimney stack from a long abandoned cottage deep in the timber plantations of Glendaruel.

Complete Coverage

Fencepost of the Week #179

Great Diving Beetle

Great Diving Beetle - Dytiscus marginalis

Ivory Tower

Fenecpost of the Week #178

Amanita virosa

Amanita virosa

 A very poisonous, pure white mushroom seen here in woods on the isle of Ulva, Scotland.

Amanita virosa