Winter colours

Recent Sightings 17^th-23^rd December

It’s been a fairly quiet week at Mersehead and we’ve been getting lots of odd jobs tied up before the holidays begin. The predator fence has been strimmed, the workshop tidied, and our last reserve barnacle goose count of the year came to 3,495.

With the Winter solstice this week, and some wild weather on Tuesday and Wednesday, the days have felt noticeably shorter. There’s never a dull day on reserve though as flashes of colour keep popping up all over the place. Walking with your hood up and head down you start taking more notice of what is on the ground and consequently some interesting fungi have been spotted.

Wood Blewit (Photo credit: S.Livingstone)

Next to the Visitors’ Centre in a small clearing by the hedgerows is a cluster of wood blewit. The blewit is a saprotrophic species-growing alone, scattered, gregariously, or in clusters on decaying leaf litter. In Scotland they are found around hedgerows, compost heaps and deciduous woodland where the soil is rich with humus. They tend to grow in late autumn and start a lilac-purple so these were found just in time because as they mature they turn a dull brown. This species is edible and interestingly they can be distinguished from poisonous purple varieties by their sweet smell. Lewis, fellow residential volunteer, decided it smelled like dark chocolate, though we can’t vouch for their taste!

A range of common jelly fungi can also be found during winter and is worth keeping an eye out for, particularly after wet weather when it is most striking. One of the brightest species found is called Orange Jelly fungus and was on a fallen gorse branch down Rainbow Lane. Another type with a more exciting name is the Crystal Brain fungus which is apparently of dubious edibility. This gelatinous variety was found on deadwood on the way to the Meida hide.

Orange Jelly fungus and Crystal Brain fungus (Photo credit: S.Livingstone)

Elsewhere there are still berries on some of the hedges and scrub for the blackbird and song thrush that remain active, and the bird feeders at the Visitors’ Centre had 18 greenfinches gathered on them over the weekend.

In the skies we have had rainbows poking through the grey clouds, as well as white flashes of the little egret and leucistic barnacle goose flying over. Down at Meida Hide we also had 6 tufted duck grouped together with their yellow eyes gleaming in the low light.

Tufted duck at Meida hide (Photo credit: S.Livingstone)

Sarah Livingstone, Residential Trainee Warden