Northumberland: Day Two

November 24, 2017November 24, 2017 | Rebecca Gibson

When I woke up the blinds were bright. I had a peek outside and was thrilled to see there was a frost clinging to the grass. I hurried into clothes and headed out into the garden. It had been a full year since my last frost and I was eager to capture some macro photos again. Leaves, twigs and thistles were all coated in a fine layer of silver crystals that, when hit by the sun, twinkled and shone like last night’s stars. Soon I had wet knees from crouching in the grass and the beginnings of a crick in my neck from getting as close as possible. My plan was to crop the photos in to create a repeating abstract texture. As usual, I took far more than I probably needed.

After relaxing for a while in the bothy I headed out again, down one hill and up the next. I passed the tyre swing, but the lack of decent light meant the shots weren’t quite what I imagined. I knew I had to photograph the bright yellow and orange larches that had taken my breath away on the drive in yesterday. Unfortunately the sun that I’d wanted to shine was well and truly concealed behind thick clouds; the light was so diluted I could gaze in its direction without difficulty. However, when I began to shoot, the rusty warm hues still popped. I began to experiment with positioning individual subjects like stray grasses in front of the camera, so the trees bled together and created a vibrant background.

The rest of the day was spent writing beside the fire and recording what I’d seen during the day. I had a sneaky look at my photos so far and was pleased with some of the outcomes. Hopefully there’d be more opportunities on our last day tomorrow.

Sightings

Chaffinch (Fringilla coelebs)
Goldcrest (Regulus regulus)
Goldfinch (Carduelis carduelis)
Robin (Erithacus rubecula)

Northumberland: Day One

November 21, 2017November 24, 2017 | Rebecca Gibson

We arrived at the bothy just as the sun was at its warmest. We were in the Northumberland National Park, and as the car rumbled up the hill I craned my neck to see the valley opening up into a patchwork blanket of green, orange and brown. It was autumn at its finest; an explosion of colour with just the right amount of chill in the air. On the way up to the bothy I spied an abandoned tyre swing, which would be a great accompaniment to the stories about childhood memories, so I made a mental note to return tomorrow.

After the customary dumping of the bags, I headed out with Cain and Lequane to set up two camera traps. With a new area, you never knew what could be roaming the forests; red squirrels, even a pine marten perhaps. We followed the burn down the hill, which was a thick sponge of fallen leaves. A dry stone wall ran parallel to the water, and I could just imagine small mammals darting along it, so set up the first trap looking out over the wall.

The light was fading, so we made our way along the burn with torchlight. The wall had collided with a tangle of sticks in one patch, perhaps a resting place for voles or mice. I set the second trap up with a viewpoint over the wall.

We made our way back up the road to the bothy, and were very surprised to see bats zooming around over our heads. Cain told us how it was very late in the year for bats, and they were perhaps roosting in or around the bothy. Cain’s sharp ears picked up a redwing calling in the distance, and then we heard a tawny owl very close by, so decided to pursue it into the cluster of trees behind the house. It was tantalizingly close and we searched the trees in the gathering gloom for any sign of it. No doubt the owl could see us perfectly and was watching with a combination of confusion and amusement, as it stopped calling as soon as we reached the trees and we didn’t hear it after that.

After taking shifts to cook our separate dinners, we had a look outside and there was a series of gasps and excitable shrieks when we all saw the night sky. I don’t think I’d ever seen so many stars – the sky was pitch black, with not a single lamppost or car light to spoil it. We all hurried inside to layer up and grab cameras, then broke off in different directions to get started. Some wandered up the hill and turned towards the Milky Way, while others stayed in the car park and began a time lapse of Orion’s Belt.

I hadn’t done a great deal of night photography, but I began to experiment and soon I found myself quite addicted to it, especially with such a beautiful and flawless background. The camera picked up millions more white pinpricks in the sky, and I was very pleased to find that I’d caught a shooting star in one image.

After an hour or so, my fingers had begun to grow numb, and I found myself capturing the same photos multiple times just because they were so beautiful. For the sake of my memory card, I headed back to the bothy to warm up and have a snack before bed.

Sightings

Barn Owl (Tyto alba)
Chaffinch (Fringilla coelebs)
European Rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus)
Redwing – heard (Turdus iliacus)
Robin (Erithacus rubecula)
Soprano Pipistrelle (Pipistrellus pygmaeus)
Tawny Owl – heard (Strix aluco)

The Beginnings of Winter

November 10, 2017November 5, 2017 | Rebecca Gibson

Before I’d even got to the hide there was a chirruping in the bushes and I turned to see a group of juvenile yellowhammers mobbing their parents, hopping between branches for attention. Three birds flew past overhead and I caught the triangular shape of starling wings as they soared over me.

The lake was quiet – a pair of mallards floated in circles on the far side, while mute swans waddled along the bank. Once I was settled inside, they appeared by the feeders, accompanied by the juvenile swans I’d seen last time. The whole family loitered beneath the swinging seed canisters, mopping up anything dropped.

The feeders themselves were a flurry of activity. As usual, the nearby bushes were full of house sparrows, fighting to snatch a mouthful. Blue tits and great tits waited in the queue and I was particularly excited to see a lone greenfinch among the group too; back home in Hertfordshire these birds are becoming scarcer and scarcer.

After watching the birds feed for a while, I wandered on. It was a lot colder than usual – dew covered the grass but it wasn’t quite cold enough to freeze it, though perhaps this may soon be the case on early mornings. There were other signs of winter too; bursts of red berries and a fat robin perched on the fence. Even though these birds are around all year, somehow a day in early winter feels like Christmas is a lot closer when you spot one.

As I made my way to the wood the only sound was the usual “whizz-burr” of the turbines as they swung. There was a break in the clouds and beautiful streaks of sunlight shone through at jaunty angles. The forest was gloomy but still inviting, and as I walked round I scanned both sides of the path to see if any fungi were sprouting up. The ground was boggy in places, and when drops of water fell in the puddles, the reflected trees twitched.

Suddenly, just as I was looping back round to the gate, a woodpigeon exploded out of the trees and made me jump a mile. Why do pigeons love doing this? It must give them a wicked satisfaction to see me clutch my chest and try to get my breath back to normal.

Once I was back in the open, the chill was even stronger. I wrapped my coat tighter around myself and hurried back to the cafe to warm up.

I Need Your Help!

November 8, 2017 | Rebecca Gibson

If you’re from the UK and have stories to tell about forests, I’d love to hear from you!

I’m writing an article about what forests mean to different people, and would love to include some personal stories about wildlife, family memories or anything in between. If you could take a few minutes to complete my survey, I’d be so grateful.

Click here to see the survey!

A Day in the Fells

November 3, 2017November 2, 2017 | Rebecca Gibson

As we turned into the car park at Honister Pass, the clouds were grumbling. Geoff Cox appeared and shook my hand in greeting, with the same kindliness he might offer to his closest friend. Having roamed the fells since childhood, the bracing chill and spattering rain are all too familiar to him. A gust of wind blew me sideways as I struggled to catch the flyaway sleeve of my coat and hastily zip it up. Pulling a hat firmly down on my head, I gazed up at the fells. The day was bleak, and an ominous mist obscured the tops of the hills, which would provide a dramatic background for filming.

Today marked the penultimate day of shooting for the second documentary about Geoff’s experiences as a fell runner. During his sixtieth year he attempted to run three notorious Lake District endurance-running rounds: in the Joss Naylor Lakeland Challenge and Gerry Charnley he was successful, but the Bob Graham round defeated him. The film we’d be shooting today was a reflection of this unsuccessful round, and how Geoff found redemption to complete the Charnley. Geoff wrote poems about each round to process these challenging ordeals, and approached filmmaker Richard Berry to transform his words into films. Today, I was joining them to see what happened behind the scenes.

We set off, following Geoff and the other endurance runners up the first incline. Before long it became evident just how comfortable they were on this terrain; while I took my time negotiating uneven and slippy rocks, the rest of the group hiked with confidence and admirable swiftness. As we climbed higher, I was told that the views up here were usually breathtaking, but the fog hung over the entire horizon like an impenetrable curtain. We were completely enclosed, walking along a single clear track with white walls on all sides. “Drifting in the Skiddaw mist”, Geoff wrote in his poem; how apt this line was today.

Now 62, Geoff has been fell running for decades, and can’t remember a specific time when this habit became a continuous routine in his life. “Work and family pressures meant I needed a sport I could focus on which didn’t need other people,” Geoff explained, “With running I could drop everything and go anytime, day or night.”

Fell running in the wilderness of the Lake District is a lonely and secluded past time, something Geoff often welcomes. “I needed a place where I could have a bit of ‘me time’. Society seems to look upon somebody who needs these extended periods of time in isolation as strange and even a bit weird. Long days running in the hills gave me what I needed; something about the independence and self-sufficiency was very appealing.”

In a few hours we reached the right place to begin the day’s filming. Director Richard and camera operator Kerr McNicoll set up and before long shooting was in full swing. Agile as mountain goats, the runners cascaded down the rocky slopes with impressive assertiveness. Surrounded by the silent fells, the only sounds were the cracking of the colliding rocks and soft squelch of mud as feet drove through. Puffs of breath spilled into the sky, and as the runners headed further off, the mist soon swallowed them.

“And again!” Richard shouted, the echo of his words bouncing for miles. After a few moments, the group appeared again. From this distance they looked like small dashes of coloured paint on a white page – the only distinguishable features of the landscape. They looped around a small lake, reflections bouncing on the water. After several takes of this shot it was time for cake – a delicious fruitcake made by Jim, one of the runners. This burst of energy was welcomed with open arms, and once Richard had filmed Geoff scaling a large rocky outcrop on his gimbal, we began to snake back through the fells, gathering footage on the way and constantly referring to Geoff’s poems to capture the essence of his experiences and narrative.

Writing poetry has helped Geoff to process the challenges and obstacles associated with endurance running. “I started writing poetry as a way of processing the mental and emotional garbage floating around in my head, or ‘mental detritus’ as I call it. Prose didn’t work because it has the wrong rhythm. Poetry allowed me to talk about what I’m thinking and meant that I could introduce the pace and metre that matched my memories.”

One of these memories took the form of white theatrical masks, worn by three of the runners looking over their shoulders at Geoff while he hung back, exhausted and near defeat. It was an intriguing idea and as we walked back through the fells I asked Geoff why he decided to include masks in the film. “They’re a symbol of how small doubts kick in and grow more insistent as the run goes on” he explained, “So we made them progressively more obvious throughout. ” This feeling of doubt was linked to people coming out to support Geoff while he competes and the pressure of not letting them down, a burden that can hang heavy on a runner under such physical and emotional strain.

I was astonished to hear that the masks were also a representation of hallucinations that Geoff said will be very familiar to long distance fell runners out on the hills for 24 hours or more. This “sleep monster” phenomenon is a result of exhaustion and sleep deprivation. “My particular version seems to be that I find myself running across strips of beautifully patterned Axminster carpet” Geoff told me, “All the time I’m thinking ‘It’s amazing that somebody has been up here and laid this carpet across these mountains!’”

Fell running in the Lake District is not for the faint-hearted. Unpredictable weather, unforgiving terrain, and a vast secluded landscape, and all with a burning in your legs. Even today, after walking seven miles, I returned to the warm café with aching knees. Geoff has proven that age is no match for will and determination, and is continuously training for new rounds to run. For him, fell running is more than exercise but a way of managing stress and even inspiring poetry. Spending time with him and the other runners opened my eyes to a life spent high above the ground, where so few people think to look.

Red Morning Ophelia’s Warning

October 19, 2017October 18, 2017 | Rebecca Gibson

Every morning when I wake up, I trudge to the window and peek outside at the weather. When I did this on Monday, the world was in sepia. A bizarre, yellow hue covered buildings, cars and streets. My sleep-fuddled mind thought perhaps the world was finally coming to an end; Earth had reached the end of her tether with the deadly human virus and was expelling us once and for all.

On my way to uni, I half-expected to see zombies staggering around. It was 9:30am, but the sun was nowhere to be seen. In the canteen all I could hear was talk of the sky and how long we all had left to live. This carried on for some time, until eventually the sky turned blue again. Strangely, the day turned into a beautiful one, and by the time I was walking home it was the warmest October afternoon in a while.

As many people soon realised, the cause of the red sun and yellow sky was Hurricane Ophelia, making her presence known everywhere possible by pulling with her a torrent of dust and tropical air from the Sahara. According to BBC weatherman Simon King, these clouds of dust meant shorter wavelengths of blue light were scattered, giving the sun its red hue.

That wasn’t all in Monday’s sky cocktail. According to the Met Office, the “vast majority” of the dust was an accumulation of debris from forest fires in Spain and Portugal, hitching a ride with Ophelia and spreading north.

So not quite the apocalypse that most of Twitter was anticipating, but the truth is terrifying enough. Hundreds of people have been sharing photos of the red sun and commenting on the weird and whacky events, but the cause of this phenomenon was a hurricane that has claimed three lives and left nearly 400,000 homes without power or running water… and that’s just in Ireland.

It’s easy to forget how devastating natural events like hurricanes are when they’re hitting thousands of miles away. But the aftermath of this storm is still very much a threat in the UK too. The damage that this hurricane, and that of Irma, Jose, and all the countless others should not be shrugged off as a pretty and peculiar occurrence.

Chesters: Day Two

October 13, 2017October 13, 2017 | Rebecca Gibson

As I peeked out the window this morning, the sun was just beginning to shine. It looked like a promising day and I was glad, as we would be walking ten miles around the Breamish Valley.

First things first though: check the Longworth trap for any visitors. Heather retrieved the trap and carefully emptied it into a paper bag. Along with the hay and leftover oats and apple chunks was a bank vole, gazing up at us with its beady black eyes.

If we were carrying out a proper small mammal survey we would attempt to sex the vole and perhaps snip a small section of fur from its back. The purpose of this is for re-trapping, so we’d know if the same vole came back. However, we were just trapping to see what mammals were in the area, so these procedures weren’t necessary. We observed the vole for a little while longer before Heather released it back into the dry stone wall alongside the bothy, where it slipped out of sight in seconds. We also left the remaining food for the vole to feast on – it was only polite.

After eating a hearty bowl of porridge and making sure we had everything packed for the day ahead, we set off across the fields and down to the first plantation. Heather told us the habitat had been classed as “felled”, but there was nothing felled about it now. Trees loomed above us, and with foliage on all sides it felt like we’d wandered into an enclosure at Jurassic Park. My overactive imagination thought the grating screeches we heard were those of Velociraptors, but sadly were just squabbling jays.

I led the group down the hill, taking care over crooked roots and dislodged rocks. I was just negotiating a particularly steep section when Cain called us back. I knew he’d seen something so I rummaged for my telephoto lens while scrambling back up to where the others had binoculars trained at the very top of a large conifer. There was a loud chirruping, and among siskins and chaffinches was a larger finch with a forked tail and an unmistakable bill that had the upper mandible overlapping the lower: common crossbills. There were several up in the tree, and as I zoomed in I saw that a male was being pestered by a begging juvenile, its pale wings flapping ten to the dozen in an attempt to catch its parent’s attention. The male, and another a few branches away, were plucking cones from the tree and holding them aloft like they weren’t quite sure where to put them. It was fascinating to watch such a strangely designed bird negotiate its food.

We wandered on, breaking out of the trees and beginning the first ascent of the day. The trail wound through an ocean of bracken, and I soon found myself chest-deep. When I glanced behind me I could only see everyone’s heads and shoulders as they waded through. The resident skylarks joined us, as well as a distant buzzard that I’m sure the skylarks were keeping a close eye on.

The sun sunk in and out of the clouds as we made our way through the valley, stopping every once in a while to photograph a mysterious fungus or watch a bird through binoculars. By lunchtime, just as my stomach was rumbling for my sandwiches, we arrived at Branton Nature Reserve. The first sound that greeted us was the noisy gabble of greylag geese as they fought for space to sit down on the crowded island. There were dozens of birds here; groups of lapwing, snipe, goosander and moorhen. There was minimal mingling between the species, reminding me of a school canteen full of cliques. Suddenly there was a commotion and many birds took to the air. The source of the panic was a heron, gliding in with broad wings and a curled neck. As he landed with spindly legs dangling, the geese gabbled uncertainly and gave him plenty of space.

We slunk as inconspicuously as we could into the hide and tucked into lunch while keeping one eye on the lake’s activity. A cormorant surfaced a few feet from the window, and paused long enough for a few breaths before diving back down, emerging moments later in a completely different place and with a wriggling fish in its bill, which was swallowed up in the blink of an eye.

Soon it was time to start heading back. It was trying to rain, and as we were making our way back past the village of Ingram it succeeded, so I hastily packed away my camera and bins. Later, once Cain had got a fire going, we’d rested our aching feet and eaten dinner, we pottered into the garden with the bat detector, to see if any bats were passing through. Before we heard any clicks though, there was a flash of white wings and a barn owl swooped out into the open. Shortly after, a second owl appeared some distance from the first, which was even more exciting. We ventured a little further up the hill and the detector started clicking. That evening we heard both common and soprano pipistrelles, and although we were leaving the wilderness behind and heading back home tomorrow, just these two days have been enough to remind me once again how important it is to spend time in nature.

Species Seen: Adder (Vipera berus) Bank Vole (Myodes glareolus) Black-Headed Gull (Chroicocephalus ridibundus) Buzzard (Buteo buteo) Chaffinch (Fringilla coelebs) Common Crossbill (Loxia curvirostra) Cormorant (Phalacrocorax carbo) Coot (Fulica atra) Eurasian Rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) Eurasian Siskin (Spinus spinus) Goldcrest (Regulus regulus) Goosander (Mergus merganser) Greylag Goose (Anser anser) House Sparrow (Passer domesticus) Jackdaw (Corvus monedula) Jay (Garrulus glandarius) Kestrel (Falco tinnunculus) Lapwing (Vanellus vanellus) Lesser Black-Backed Gull (Larus fuscus) Lesser Redpoll (Acanthis cabaret) Little Grebe (Tachybaptus ruficollis) Magpie (Pica pica) Moorhen (Gallinula chloropus) Mute Swan (Cygnus olor) Pheasant (Phasianus colchicus) Red-Legged Partridge (Alectoris rufa) Reed Bunting (Emberiza schoeniclus) Robin (Erithacus rubecula) Rook (Corvus frugilegus) Skylark (Alauda arvensis) Snipe (Gallinago gallinago) Sparrowhawk (Accipiter nisus) Starling (Sturnus vulgaris) Teal (Anas crecca) Tufted Duck (Aythya fuligula) Wigeon (Anas penelope)

Chesters: Day One

October 6, 2017October 5, 2017 | Rebecca Gibson

The rain was lashing on the windscreen as we made our bumpy way up the hill to Chesters. Sheep shook their sodden wool and watched the car with quizzical expressions as it grumbled over rocky grass. Before long the bothy came into view, nestled amongst the rolling bracken hills. I was just scanning the ground for darting pheasants when a pair of beady brown eyes made me call out for Cain to stop the car. Slowly reversing, we just caught a glimpse of the hare’s face before it turned tail and scarpered back through the bracken. I saw this as a very good wildlife omen for the rest of the weekend.

After settling in and enjoying some lunch, we headed through the Breamish Valley to meet the expeditioneers. I had a scan with the binoculars and spotted a kestrel hovering, drifting and hovering again. Heather told me she’d seen a pair of ravens swooping around yesterday, so it would be fantastic to hear some ‘kronking’ this weekend.

The weather couldn’t seem to make up its mind. Rain drummed on our heads one minute, then the sun was shining and turning the hills gold. Skylarks zoomed above, filling the air with their high-pitched chirruping, while pheasants screamed down in the valley, darting in and out of view like a Scooby Doo villain chase.

Once the expeditioneers had unpacked, we headed out for a wander. A breeze whistled in the grass but the sun still fought with the clouds for a good view. We ducked into the nearest conifer plantation to see if there were any good spots to set a camera trap. After following a trodden track that trailed through the trees – a sure sign that there were creatures using this route, perhaps a group of roe deer or even a badger – we positioned the trap with a good vantage point down the trail.

Further on through the plantation was a Scots pine peppered with deep, spherical holes. The tree was dead, and had become the perfect sculpting project for great-spotted woodpeckers, who had transformed it into a wooden honeycomb. It was extraordinary to see tough, dead bark being carved and moulded so easily by blackbird-sized creatures. Although we did hear their sharp ‘kik’ call somewhere in the plantation, we didn’t meet any possible culprits, so couldn’t be sure if it was the work of a single bird or perhaps multiple competing for such a valuable pecking post.

The sun was slowly setting. As the light faded, a hazy glow settled over the Cheviot Hills, illuminating the uppermost branches. Every colour was intensified; russet orange, army green, lime green, all blending together and criss-crossed with conifer needles. Spots of bright light broke through gaps in the canopy, playing tricks on my eyes when I thought a hyper-lit brown leaf was a luminous orange mushroom.

After a while we broke out of the plantation and wandered along the Chesters Burn as it bubbled downstream. The water was a vivid blue, frothing white as it crashed over rocks. A piercing ‘zrik!’ cut through the rush of the river and we all turned to spot the white-breasted bullet speeding down the watercourse. Sure enough, a dipper zoomed into view, wings a frantic blur. Perhaps less regally dressed than its neighbour the kingfisher, but still a charismatic and highly specialised little fisherman.

By now the sun had sunk out of view and the landscape dulled in colour, the familiar dusky haze settling over our surroundings. Heather told us about an expression that perfectly described this time of day: entre chien et loup, meaning “between dog and wolf”. In dim twilight, our eyes have to work harder to distinguish shapes, perhaps mistaking a harmless dog for a slightly more intimidating canine! Up in the Cheviots though, there were no monsters hiding, so it was enlightening to see what was venturing out at this time of day.

Once we’d made the ascent back up the hill to the bothy, the moon and stars had dominance of the sky. There were a few wispy clouds, but mostly the horizon was clear, so we all retrieved hats and gloves and set up tripods in the garden for some star photography. I hadn’t had a lot of practice shooting at night, so was pleased to capture some shots of the bothy backed by the entire night sky. Getting such good views of stars was a breathtaking end to our first day in the wilderness.

Species Seen:

Brown Hare (Lepus europaeus) Buzzard (Buteo buteo) Carrion Crow (Corvus corone) Dipper (Cinclus cinclus) Coal Tit (Periparus ater) European Rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) Goldcrest (Regulus regulus) Great Spotted Woodpecker (Dendrocopos major) Great Tit (Parus major) Grey Heron (Ardea cinerea) Kestrel (Falco tinnunculus) Long-Tailed Tit (Aegithalos caudatus) Mallard (Anas platyrhynchos) Meadow Pipit (Anthus pratensis) Pheasant (Phasianus colchicus) Skylark (Alauda arvensis) Woodpigeon (Columba palumbus)

Bike Ride in the Woods

September 29, 2017September 28, 2017 | Rebecca Gibson

Another visit to one of my favourite wildlife places: Watchtree Nature Reserve. Zahrah and I hired bikes and set off through the reserve, taking a leisurely ride away from the hubbub of the café and car park to the quieter open fields and woodland.

The lake was fairly busy. A pair of Mute Swans and their two cygnets glided silently to and fro in one corner, shaking heads and rustling feathers. The youngsters were almost fully grown, their juvenile grey foliage blending to pristine adult white. When one stretched his wings, bright white armpits showed. Elsewhere on the lake, three Tufted Ducks were feeding, golden eyes blinking as they came up for air. A lone Little Grebe dived under the water and popped up again several metres away. As agile as a fish, the tiny bird curled its body and slipped silently beneath the surface.

Suddenly, as I was scanning the feeders for any birds joining the Tree Sparrows already tucking into the feast, my eye caught on a brown shape nestled amongst the grass. From my vantage point on the top storey of the hide I could see the Brown Hare perfectly as it chewed, hunkered down. I called in a hushed whisper to Zahrah, who’d been watching the pond from the bottom level, and she darted up to see.

The hare was beautiful, with rich, brown streaked fur and piercing eyes. Its ears were pinned tightly to its nape, in an attempt to remain as inconspicuous as possible, but the creature was still brave enough to forage out of the cover of the long grass. We watched it for a few minutes, before it turned and hopped back into the grass. After waiting a while to see if it would re-emerge any closer, we accepted our hare was long gone.

Leaving the lake behind, we looped around the reserve and cycled back through the woods. Once again, I was distracted by fungi, and Zahrah amused herself while I crawled around on the floor with my camera. Today, as always, there was plenty to see. A huge troop of Stump Puffballs (Lycoperdon pyriforme, the only British Lycoperdon to grow exclusively on wood) stood to attention on a fallen log, their portly bodies stood side by side.

**Stump Puffball** *(Lycoperdon pyriforme)*

The delicate Candlesnuff fungus (Xylaria hypoxylon) stretched out of the wood, tiny black spindles dipped in white. Just as I had finally put away my camera and climbed back on the bike, I was greeted by three Shaggy Inkcaps (Coprinus comatus) stood on either side of the path like security guards. I hadn’t seen this fungus since autumn last year so it was a treat to photograph them again, and provided a satisfying end to our cycle in the woods.