Often it can be very useful to read articles and ‘follow’ wildlife enthusiasts and experts to learn about new species that can be hard to find or be found in locations you don’t think of looking. So having seen a picture of some small fungi on sheeps horn on the Dumfries and Galloway Resources Centre facebook page (my home region) I thought I’d keep an eye out for it.
Onygena equine - Horn stalkball
While up on the moors I spotted a rather small horn, so took a closer look and found a single fungi stalk inside. It is called onygena equine (Horn stalkball), up to 5mm tall, feeds on the keratin of the horn and can also be found on hooves. Perhaps unsurprisingly this was a first record for the reserve but was quickly followed by more when an old ram’s skull was found to be covered in the fungus.
Fungus on dead holly leaf
If horn stalkball is small, then this fungi is miniscule at about 1mm tall. Again thanks to a facebook post I was made aware of fungi growing on dead holly leaves and after a quick search under a holly bush found some tiny toadstool shaped fungi. This one is currently unidentified but they look so amazing that I’m not too worried what its name is!
Last weekend we got a reminder that winter is still lingering with a good covering of snow. However temperatures warmed up this weekend and produced a nice selection of moths overnight including: oak beauty, yellow horned and Hebrew character.
Snowy scene looking up the River Vyrnwy
Birds are starting to pair up and be very vocal. Our pair of peregrine are back in residence on the rocky cliff face seen from the lakeside hide along with a pair of great crested grebes at the top of the lake. Stonechat are back on the uplands and have been very territorial with both males and females chasing each other and males singing from prominent vantage points, the bracken slopes along the Dinas Mawddwy road is a good place to find them. The first merlin of the season was seen over the moorland, seen to catch a reed bunting, and an oystercatcher paid a brief visit on the 10th flying around the dam.
The oystercatcher, along with 3 canada geese, has helped take my winter list to 85.
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