Fungi at Rupert's Wood

Rupert's Wood, a mixed woodland including some ancient trees, is little more than four miles to the north of my home in Redesdale. The wood is owned by Lord Redesdale and occupies some thirty-one hectares enclosed by a dry-stone wall.

A view of Rupert's Wood, taken on an earlier visit
The wood is home to a stone-lined pond dating from the mid-nineteenth century, reputedly used in the past for swimming. Its best use today is as a mirror, providing some wonderful autumn reflections and reminding me of Escher's Three Worlds lithograph ...


Rupert's Wood is an excellent site for fungi and several pictured during an earlier visit can be found here. During my visit this week I found others, including two new to me comprising this Stinkhorn (Phallus impudicus) ...


... and this cluster of Sheathed Woodtuft (Kuehneromyces mutabilis), growing on the decaying wood of a deciduous tree ...


Despite it being a sunny autumn day, there was not enough light to take pictures amongst the undergrowth in the deeper parts of the wood, at least not without using my camera's flash ...

Yellow Staghorn (Calocera viscosa)
The Sickener (Russula emetica)
Coral Spot (Nectria cinnabarina) : The soft cushion-like pustules of the conidial (pre sexual) stage
I also found this Birch Polypore or Razorstrop Fungus (Piptoporus betulinus), a more mature example than that found at Sutton Hoo and shown in my previous piece ...


Finally, this view showing upland Northumberland at its best, looking north from Rupert's Wood, across Upper Redesdale towards the hills of the Scottish border ...

Surfacing

It's almost three months since I wrote something for these pages. Now autumn has arrived and I'm nagged with the mixed feelings of regret, for opportunities missed during the lost months, and concern for what I'll find to fill these pages during the winter.

I'm not long returned from a short trip to Suffolk where I enjoyed visits to Constable Country and Sutton Hoo, so these might be good places to start.

Willy Lott's house and the 'flat ford' crossing
Flatford Cottage
Valley Farm
My first Speckled Wood (Pararge aegeria)
At Sutton Hoo, the exhibition at the National Trust visitor centre was fascinating, not least the remarkable reproduction of the Saxon helmet unearthed at the site in 1939 ...


Following the woodland walk to the burial grounds, I found this perfect Fly Agaric (Amanita muscaria) ...


And this equally perfect Birch polypore (Piptoporus betulinus) ...


And in the hedgerows surrounding the beautiful farmhouse home of my young friends Kerry and Paul Baker, I found sufficient blackberries to make, on my return to Redesdale, a winter-long supply of blackberry and apple jam ...