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Look who's dropped a massive log in The Mens
Posted by Graeme Lyons , Friday, 18 November 2011 08:46
You know a tree is going to be impressive when it has a name. This is the Idehurst Oak at the Mens and it's one of the biggest we have on our nature reserves. I have seen some pretty interesting things on and from this tree including the rare Lymexylon navale and even a Polecat in broad daylight. Last week we were told by a tree surgeon that the impossibly huge limb on this tree had a huge crack in it. We went to check it out yesterday but it had already come down. I was quite glad really that we didn't have to do any work on it. It has fallen in such a way that it has taken out a number of other trees, mostly Holly and Beech. It has created its own rather large canopy gap and also exposed the trunk to direct sunlight. I will be going back over the next few years to look for saproxylic beetles and fungi.
Nearby we found what I thought was going to be the Yellow Stainer but I am not so sure now as it smelt very strongly of almonds, marzipan even. Yellow Stainer is unlikely as it is meant to smell unpleasantly of ink. We are going to get hold of a specimen and get some identification on it. Vivien Hodge has kindly pointed out that it is likely to be something interesting and will do the identification for us, watch this space.
At Ebernoe I spotted another one of these mushrooms that we saw also at Woods Mill this week. Another almond scented Agaricus known as the Lilac Mushroom (and a new species for me).
I also spotted this rather awesome liverwort in Ebernoe, Plagiochila porelloides.
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Wow, that's a very impressive log...!!! :-D When was the polecat sighting here? I'm searching out any info I can find about polecats in Sussex :-)