Day 336 - Further Fungi

glossy

Well, today has been long, and in some ways arduous...but ultimately, a very good day, for both us and the local fungi!

It's definitely a fungal time of year, and everywhere we go whilst walking Robin, we find more examples...but that said, the lovely shiny mushroom above is growing on the log pile just outside our back door!

I'm not sure why it has this glossy look - it didn't have that a couple of days ago.

Anyway this morning we took Robin over to the orchard for a run, wanting to drain some of his energy before a long and challenging day for him.

We were due at a first birthday party in Stockport for the afternoon, followed by a twenty first birthday party in Burbage, near Hinckley, all evening.

This would involve two, two-hour car journeys, either side of meeting a bunch of strangers (Anna's family), in a strange house...then after a brief pit-stop at home, two one-hour journeys, either side of meeting a bunch of even strangers (my family) in another strange house.

So with the prospect of six hours in the car, and eight or more hours meeting our families, we wanted him to have a good walk to tire him a little bit.

In the orchard and the woods, we asked him to assess various holes in the hedgerow that have at some time been used by local wildlife, and let us know which are currently more (or less) active.

If we point a hole out to him, he will approach it and have a quick sniff - and the amount of interest he shows tells us how active it is.

If he turns away immediately following his initial olfactory inspection, then we know it's not in use...if he goes in for more sniffing, then it may have been used recently...and the longer it retains his interest, the more recently active the through route. 

On one occasion he showed a keen and extended interest in this section of hedgerow...

hmm interesting

There didn't seem to be a route through, and yet he kept sniffing, and moving further and further in, ignoring the brambles and barbed wire that were trying to repel him...

In the end we had to call him off and go in to see what he was so interested in...

wtf?

Somewhat curiously, there was the lower half of a leg, including a knee and ankle joint, caught on the spikes of the bramble.   I'm guessing it's probably deer or sheep, and we think it must have been dropped by a bird of prey, of which the only ones potentially capable of carrying this lower leg would be the buzzard or the red kite.

Robin compliantly left it once asked, despite his strong attraction.   And when, a few minutes later, we found some large field mushrooms, he obligingly sat in the middle of them and posed for me, to provide some scale to the shot.

surrounded

He remained sitting whilst we explored some angle, and got this nice shot of the underbelly of the large mushroom in the lower right corner above.

gills

We then took him out from 11.30 a.m. and remained mostly out for the next 13 hours (it's 1.30 a.m. as I'm writing this), and he was really well behaved.

Suffice to say he won everybody over with his calm, gentle nature, and he also made good progress working out who the soft touches are (cough, shiv, cough), the ones who are good bets to hassle for food. 

Good job, Wonderboy!

:-)