The Lophocolea Stump part 2

These first two photos show the south-east slope as it was in the spring of 2006 before we moved here. The spruce stumps both still had at least some of their bark and were pretty bare on top.

SE slope and rotting lean-to 2006

May 2014

By the spring of 2014, the lower stump had a good covering of the liverwort, Variable-leaved Crestwort (Lophocolea heterophylla).

with snow, March 2015

In the slightly snowy photo above, you can see sections of the tree's trunk. In the August of 2014, when I was trying to identify one of the mosses on the spruce wood, I discovered a large ants' nest inside the wood and came across blue leafhoppers for the first time. Blogpost about that here.

I still haven't identified this one ↑, or if I did I've forgotten what its name is.

During the low light days of the winter of 2015-16, the stump covering of Variable-leaved Crestwort was a lovely bright spot

and its sides were becoming clothed in bryophytes, lichens and small plants like heath bedstraw.

Sporophytes of Lophocolea heterophylla, November 2015.

In late February this year I removed the length of hosepipe that I'd been 'storing' around the stump for some years after finding it lying about in the way of my scything efforts once too often. There was plenty of evidence of insect activity.

someone has been digging into the wood

By November this year the top of the stump looked like this. I saw a young magpie pulling bits of wood out just recently, presumably in search of tasty morsels to eat.

the Lophocolea stump in December 2016

Most recently the stump has been decorated with three (found another after taking that photo) small pumpkins that I found (mystifyingly!) near it. I later discovered that Toadlet had thrown them out of her bedroom window at one o'clock in the morning during a break from revising for exams! It's the sort of thing my dad said he called a "scream" when he was a university student ☺ in the 1950s.

Some things don't change!

More roe deer depradations

This morning I went out with an old knife to cut through the bulbous lower stems of some rushes on the front primrose and daffodil bank (there are plenty elsewhere!). Above me at the bottom of the dry stone wall I noticed some clumps of lichen and a place on top of the wall where some had been pulled off.

I put back in place one clump that had not fallen to the ground and then realised that the largest of the three bits on the ground had taken root, at least it couldn't be lifted up. If you enlarge the first pic by clicking on it you can see that there is some moss growing through it. The other two bits were just lying around loosely, so to speak.













While on the bank looking up at the dry stone wall I noticed two more lichen patterns on stones.



Down below me on a slighty raised part of the boggy lawn I fenced off an area that contains fifteen new, self-seeded primrose plants. Toad can be a bit indiscriminate with the mower but he understands my keep off signs.

Elsewhere we have dandelion number two and the first sign this year of a violet flower.

I went in search of hazel leaves

The Woodland Trust was asking on Twitter if there were leaves still on hazel trees. There are some on the Boggy Brae hazel but I went "up the back" by the burn where there are older hazel plants to see what state they were in.

 Loads on young trees (left) and still plenty on older plants (below)

Poking around by the burn, which is splashy after all the rain we've had (which, for comparison, is a mere drip compared with what they've had up in the Highlands over the last couple of days),

and enjoying the rich Assam tea look it has in less tumbly parts of its wee ravine,

I came upon a robin. Actually, I think the robin came upon me. It certainly seemed to checking me out to see if I was turning up something tasty for it. So here's a game of

Spot the Robin

(click on the pics to enlarge)

Are you sure you didn't bring some mealworms?

Making my way back by this path–the burn and the wooded hillside to my right and the Boggy Brae garden to my left–I enjoyed the colours and crinkliness of what I know as Dog Lichen. I believe the dog part of the name means common, so common lichen, otherwise called Peltigera horizontalis/Flat-Fruited Dog Lichen, both by the burn and on rocks and trees back in the garden:

This sample is on one of the old railway sleepers
that the half-collapsed bridge is made of

The sample above and the one to the right are Boggy Brae samples.

Last of all, before coming in for a bowl of spicy lentil soup, I enjoyed the last of this year's Den Rose blossoms, a small flower, and very wet like everything else, but bonny for all that.

The first of the autumn welly wanders

in my PJs and dressing-gown, while Toad and Toadlet snore on.

The irrepressible rose flowers on

The perennial sweet peas flower a second time

The polopody ferns on the dry stone wall make spores

Some less ripe ones

Then I looked over the wall and saw the meadow saffron (Colchicum autumnale) in flower

Its neighbouring bolete

I counted six boletes this morning

Some self-seeded ling also on the front bank under the downy birch

And more fungi various: 

a Russula, I think

a second Coprinopsis lagopus

These on an old log

Seems the roe deer are still munching on the rosebay willowherb,
preventing it from flowering

the early autumn state of some roseroot

Lungwort leaves looking good

Azalea leaves; I almost like these better than the flowers
whose scent makes me sneeze

This, of wild angelica seed, is specially for DivingDaghter

Can you see the wolf?