The fungi to be with

Having spent much of the time on patrol looking upwards and around, September is the time to start looking down. The damp, cool ground now abounds with fungus in different stages of growth. Some are merely budding while some are drooping and melting away in to blackness. There are the solitary ones and those which are in tight clusters. Clearly, there are the strict ground dwellers while others cling to wood. Broad, meaty discs are found along with pale and flimsy umbrellas. And no doubt, somewhere, the red, spotted fly agaric, looking like a sesame seed burger bun.

I do not know very much about these plants. I understand that many are very poisonous and fatal if eaten. I must admit to eating only those I find in Sainsbury's. I remember, clearly, my father walking in to the house with field mushrooms which he fried with eggs and bacon and which I loved to eat. They were huge things, six or seven inches across, white on top with black gills underneath. I suppose the spread of housing and retail parks will have taken away much of the land where once they grew, but fifty years ago, meadows and open land was literally on our doorstep.

I suppose they all have names and perhaps this could be a task for next year. I could become a bit more familiar with some of the ones associated with the parkland, though I will stop short of trying to eat any.

Having, last time, seen a rather static buzzard, Ian and I were gifted the sight of four in flight. As we approached the Argyll monument, first one, then two and finally a quartet of these birds were seen at tree top height dropping occasionally and frustratingly, for us, behind the trees of Warren wood. Their markings and colouring were very clear. With the sun behind us illuminating the birds, it was the best view I have had of these creatures.

The day was warm, the sky was clear and they began their circling and climbing, using the slope of the land with its thermals. They were lost to the sight of the naked eye, only to be seen again over Keeper's Pond. They were clearly enjoying themselves soaring and wheeling around, because, as Ian often says, they can.