I'm back Campfield Marsh for another 6 months and it's my favourite time of the year. There's a nice wee chill in the air, the colours are gorgeous and it's migration season! I was very pleased to find out that there's plenty of surveying during the winter too with added goose counts and arable counts of the birds that have come to eat the cereal crops we have planted. Soon the numbers will be building. In addition the fields are starting to be wetted up which will bring in more wildfowl and waders. Something that I've noticed already are more pied wagtails than usual and that they looked a bit unusual. They are likely to be migrants passing through and according to the book this is a 1st winter wagtail:
There are still some butterflies flitting about, including a red admiral I saw this morning and dragonflies such as these black darters I saw on the boardwalk:
As well as birds, autumn brings with it more fungi and I've seen quite a lot around the reserve. Near the boardwalk I saw this lovely Turkeytail bracket fungus (trametes versicolor, meaning thin and many coloured):
Under the boardwalk I found this:
Looking at the book I thought it looked most like Root Rot (Heterobasidion annosum), although this is most often found on conifers it can also be found on deciduous trees. I think I need to have a closer look to be sure though.
One that was a bit easier to ID was this very distinctive Earth Fan (Thelephora terrestris):
All these and more were found between the dead trees (on which you can see Birch Polypore or Piptoporus betulinus):
and the woods:
if you would like to have a look for yourself.
I found many others but need some more time to ID them.