Last weekend was a bit damp but glorious nonetheless.

On Friday we went to the annual Wood Fair at Bentley.  Lots of it was as previous years but that just means refreshing the brain and meeting friends of old.  What was new was a display of raptors : great for brushing up on what rare birds really look like, whether they be owls, falcons, kites or harriers.

We bought a good looking book on the identification of fungi at the fair – now all we have to do is learn how to do it [see below]!

On Saturday we lunched in Titania’s Bower …

… barbecued pork loin chops with fried onion and asparagus.  Only the French Stick [and the beer] is not visible.  Lots of large mosquitos but the smoke seemed to keep them away.

Wandering around the woods afterwards we found evidence of the wild boar on the eastern edge of Open Pond, a real wallow :

Complete with the evidence :

That is a British penny [a bit bigger than a US cent] next to the trotter imprint.

This time we took a picture of a burrow which has been excavated under a woodpile in Bellhurst Wood.  It is not clear whether it is badger or fox but we are betting on badger :

The fungi are generally late in sending up their sporing bodies this year because September has been so dry but we did find one totally unknown [to us] specimen :

and a couple of brackets of interest.  This one is living in a fallen cherry, judging by the bark :

It is smoother and paler than the one in the last blog.  However, this one or perhaps two is the more interesting :

the tree bowl below the dark brackets is laden with rust-brown spores, turning the moss from green to brown.  However there are also small white brackets lower down.  Are these a different species or this year’s sporing bodies which will turn dark brown with age?