Veronica Entrances Her AudienceIn the absence of Joan, nursing a sick husband (and we all wish Barrie a speedy recovery), Annie assumed full responsibility for today's trip back to Leeds and she was able to use her local knowledge of the site for our benefit. 17 members and one guest from Portugal, Rachel, who is doing a 10 month voluntary placement with BEES, enjoyed a varied day out in cloudy but dry weather with autumn tints adding to our enjoyment of this quite extensive area.
There was some early discussion regarding whether we were looking at a swamp cypress (taxodium distichum) or a dawn redwood (metasequoia glyptostoboides). The discussion was instigated by Amanda who likes the sound of the latin name for the redwood but wasn't really necessary as we found a label on the tree confirming that it was indeed a swamp cypress - Donald 1 Amanda 0!
Veronica then led part of the group on a fungi foray and indentified 25 species for us which included dead man's fingers, artist's fungus, horse's hoof fungus, beefsteak fungus and blushing bracket. Alice did a flower list which contained the surprising number of 46 plants in flower. We didn't see a great variety of birds, but we did record great spotted woodpecker, heron, nuthatch, jay, long-taied tit and red kite along with the resident water birds on the lake and ponds. Back in the environs of the cafe we were delighted to see red admiral, comma and painted lady(?) butterflies. Some members made the additional trip to nearby Breary Marsh but did not record anything out of the ordinary.
Another very pleasant BEES outing which once again visited a local site and thus maintained our very small carbon footprint!
Stuart
There is a photo of the fly agaric seen today, in the BEES gallery. For a photo of the same fly agaric taken two days earlier please go to this link...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/suejeanz/3958502513/This demonstrates how the younger fly agaric has a more rounded top, but as it ages the top flattens out.
Sue