The Lyons Share

This is Pipe Club, and I've been waiting years to see this again just so I can write a blog with this title. Indulge me.

"The first rule of Pipe Club is: You do not talk about Pipe Club. The second rule of Pipe Club is: You do not talk about Pipe Club. Third rule of Pipe Club: Someone yells stop, goes limp, taps out, the recording session is over. Fourth rule: only two guys to a specimen. Fifth rule: one identification at a time, fellas. Sixth rule: wear shirts, wear shoes. Seventh rule: Photo shoots will go on as long as they have to. And the eighth and final rule: If this is your first day at Pipe Club, you have to find a rare fungus".

(This is either going to make NO sense to you, or if you seen the film/read the book will at best be mildly amusing. Hey, I like my incongruous natural history/popular culture references and it's my blog, OK?).

Anyways, for the first time since last May, I've been out with the WWFRG to Whithurst Park where we mopped up and I added 27 new fungi to my list. I was very pleased to see that my old friend Shaun Pryor has become an active member of the group and we had a good catch up. Shaun has literally just signed up to Pan-species Listing and is attempting something no one else has: he is starting completely from scratch! You can follow Shaun's progress here. Anyway, Whithurst Park. Fungi have some pretty bonkers common names and Pipe Club has always made me chuckle. It's also almost exactly the same colour and texture as Morph...

Perhaps the most ridiculous name of the day was Elastic Saddle, a new one for me and quite an uncommon species. I think it kinda looks like a fortune cookie.

Other new species today included these tiny Twig Parachutes growing on a bramble stem.

And this Peeling Oysterling. 

As per usual though, Magpie Inkcaps stole the show.

A big thank you to all the people at the WWFRG for sharing their incredible wealth of knowledge. Shaun and I then carried on to Ebernoe Cricket Pitch and there were even more waxcaps there this week than last. With a little help, we are fairly sure we saw nine species, including two new ones for me, these huge Splendid Waxcaps.

And the strongly honey-scented Honey Waxcap. It is impossible to take a photo of a fungus at Ebernoe Cricket Pitch without it being photo-bombed by Chamomile leaves!

And a single Orange Grisette was up again too.

WARNING: This post is stupid.

It's that time of year when I have to get up really early once or twice a week to carry out bird surveys. This morning I woke up twelve minutes before my alarm clock at the ungodly hour of 4:18 am. This meant I went to bed early, about 9:00 pm. When I have to have an early night, I pass out pretty quickly, so when Rachael comes in a few hours later, I'm out cold. Almost. See, I have a tendency to talk utter rubbish at these times and occasionally wake myself up laughing, hysterically sometimes. Last night was no exception, as I simply uttered the word:

"Fungalton"

WHAT THE HELL IS FUNGALTON?!? A mythical mushroom market town in the Midlands? An actual ton of toadstools? I have no idea. I can only think it was something to do with the West Weald Fungi Recording Group field meeting I attended yesterday at Whithurst Park. Other classics from the last two years include:

"There's a man over there dressed as a lamp post" (there wasn't)

"Can you smell wizards?" (we couldn't, actually I still can't)

And the all time mid summer 2013 classic:

"It will soon be time for my Christmas egg" (to this day, I have not received my Christmas egg)

Enough of this nonsense and time for some wildlife, I am a serious naturalist after all! The highlight of yesterday's field trip was not actually a fungus but rather a vascular plant that has eluded me for a number of years, despite searching for it. We stumbled across over twenty plants of Narrow-leaved Bittercress on a woodland ride. I still get a kick out of seeing new plants even if they're not in flower. 

I only added one fungi being Pale Brittlstem Psthyrella candolleana.

But I did see three new inverts. A spider (Pachygnatha listeri), a saproxylic beetle under oak bark (Cerylon histeroides) and this very cool Truffle Gall caused by the wasp Andricus quercusradicis. Growing out of the base of an oak tree, it really did look like a fungus but it's quite hard and woody and full of cells each containing a tiny larva. Now, I wonder what fresh madness I will dream up tonight (fortunately for everyone I only have about eight early starts left this year).