Fungussy welly wander in the wood

It being beautifully autumnal yesterday morning, and not raining, I decided to go on a fungal foray on the farm track above the garden and in the woods just above that. It was partly to check if there were any chanterelles in the usual place by the burn. Nope. Either there has been too much sheep and heifer traffic along there this year or conditions have not been right for other reasons.

Chanterelle habitat in previous years

Before I climbed over our corner 'stile' though, I spotted this purple-staining milkcap mushroom at the top of the garden. under the goat willow.

And then this mushroom gowing on the woodpile up there





This is the 'stile', Boggybrae style, at the west corner of the garden. I use the mossy wall at the right of the photo as a step.

Here's the one, barricaded against heifers, in the south corner (the west and south corners of the garden are at the top, the south one being the highest on the slope that is Boggybrae).

without the branches, it's a swing your leg over
kind of stile

No chanterelles by the burn then, but there was plenty of this eyelash fungus on the cowpats. And this tiny inkcappy-looking one:


At this point I was beginning to think: "Cannae move for fungi!" 😀 Here are four more within a few steps of each other still in the back farm track:


Wandering back up the track towards what I call the umbonnate field (because, from across the loch, its shape looks like a huge umbonnate mushroom cap), it was these Vermillion Waxcaps that called me over the fence into the wood. Such a stunning colour!

Before even crossing the wee feeder burn of Hattonburn, I spotted these:

Then, having tested my rather old wellies' waterproofness, I scruffled around in a fairly small area of woodland looking at a large number of fungi. It's not a simple 'walk in the woods' kind of wood; definitely more of a scruffle getting anywhere as the pics below show. Managed not to get my hat yanked off by a stray branch or bramble this time though. I think that's a first.

Scruffle woodland

My way back to my sit-upon-ery and gloves
(leather, for barbed wire and brambles)

Lots of things like this, boletes past their best, perhaps. There were plenty of young ones too.


A selection of fungi on wood:



Some webcaps



Some more on the ground, including some that I think of as "frilly gillers". The yellow one, whose colour the phone camera had difficulty capturing, was plentiful. I'm not sure if it is Yellow Swamp Brittlegill/Russula claroflava but we have had that in the garden sometimes. The photos here show tiny fraction of all that was to be seen.

And still, after all my scruffling, I was within easy sight of South Stile.
You don't have to go far for a fungal foray on Boggybrae.
A mizzle of rain started a this juncture. It had turned into heavy rain by the time I was back in the house.


I see one of the frillies is duplicated. Blogger has begun to play sillybuggers so I won't try to delete one of them!