The Nature of Scotland – Autumn 2011 – Issue 13

Breaking cover
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Fungi are undercover experts. For much of the year, most live as networks of tiny
threads, underground or on surfaces such as tree trunks. Come late summer and
autumn, many break cover.
The fruiting bodies we know as mushrooms and toadstools reveal themselves.
It's a bit like a seasonal metro network, where the 'hyphae' are the hidden train
tracks and the visible fungi are some stations with overground access (autumn
only).
So finding a fungus, whether a singleton or a clump, is often a surprise. Look
closely to appreciate the richness of colours and the patterns underneath the
caps. In woods, the poisonous fly agaric, with its white-freckled top of pillarbox
red, is well known, and fun to photograph or paint. But there are many others that
reward close inspection, such as the 'Penny Bun', with its sticky brown cap and
yellow underside.
On old grasslands, watch for the reds and oranges of different kinds of
waxcaps. And wherever you look, unless you're an expert on these undercover
operators, enjoy, but don't pick or eat them.
Web tip: http://sites.google.com/site/scottishfungi
Skeins do it
Highland author Neil Gunn had a knack of creating short book titles that make
you think of a natural scene, such as Morning Tide. My favourite is Wild Geese
Overhead.
That phrase never fails to excite my imagination. It brings to mind the
pleasure of hearing goose calls soaring over traffic noise in a city at night; of
looking up to see arrowed skeins in motion above glens, lochs or fields; of smiling
at how flying geese can bring nature so close that you feel it, like a shiver.
Huge numbers of migrant geese visit Scotland from autumn until spring.
Thanks to the number and variety of geese it hosts, one of my favourite autumn
goose grounds is the Isle of Islay.
Huge numbers of arctic-breeding barnacle geese go there (more than
28,000 last autumn). Add Greenland white-fronted geese and pale-bellied brent
geese - both much scarcer - and the Islay mix becomes a choice one for wildfowl
enthusiasts.
Wild Geese Overhead – say it, then live it!
Web tip: www.rspb.org.uk/reserves/guide/l/lochgruinart/index.aspx
Some other things
to look for in autumn:
The glorious colours of
bramble leaves after night
frosts; Orion, constellation
of The Hunter, traversing the
southern sky; lines of crows
and gulls flying at evening to
roosts; spider webs by the
thousands on bushes wet with
morning dew.
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www.snh.gov.uk 7