Autumn

 It's definitely looking autumnal now, with the leaves falling and changing colour. I was raking up some leaves in the garden when I spotted a hedgehog.  He/she was  munching on something  so I went to get my phone for a photo.  Hedgehogs always give an impression of being cute, but when I looked at what was being eaten it was a dead field mouse... 

I don't expect to see a hedgehog during the day and my garden is rabbit proofed so when he tried to climb up the netting to move on, I picked him up (carefully, with gloves on,  as those prickles are sharp) and put him in some unfenced woodland.

While walking along the Main Street in Newtonmore, I stopped to look at the lawn in front of the Monarch Apartments (once the Craig Mhor Hotel) which has an extensive crop of fungi growing on it. My favourites have to be the ink caps (Coprinus species) which start off as fat fingers poking up through the soil.

Then they self destruct into drippy black caps.

The caps release an enzyme that dissolves the cell walls in the cap and gills but leaves the stem standing. Presumably the spores manage to escape before they are destroyed. There is more about inkcaps (and how to make ink) in a previous post here.

Fungi

 Autumn weather has arrived, with great colours on the trees but not a lot of flowers around.  But there is plenty to see when you look at the ground. Mushrooms, toadstools, whatever you call them, fungi are popping up and enlivening any walk.

One of the most gruesome for Halloween is the inkcap. It starts off a pristine white.

Shaggy Inkcap

 But as it grows, it transforms into a black drippy spectacle. Quite beautiful, though, in its own way.

Shaggy Inkcap deliquescing

It is reported to be edible when young but also has uses as it starts to liquefy.  Here's a quote from WildfoodUK:

"You can also make some very good ink from them. To do this mix the inkcap ink with a little water and some cloves and heat it. This process will help fix the ink and stop it from fading or running when you use it."

This photo was taken close to Newtonmore Golf Course.  There is also usually a good crop on the front lawn of Monarch Apartments (which used to be the Craig Mhor Hotel) but they were all finished when I checked yesterday. But there are Waxcaps  growing there at the moment.

Waxcaps have a waxy slippery feeling cap and come in all sizes.  One of the bigger types is growing all around the upper section of Newtonmore Golf Course in the rough grass. I think it is the Crimson Waxcap (Hydrocybe punicea) but I am no expert! It has the wide apart gills characteristic of waxcaps, and a very attractive yellow and orange patterned stem.

Crimson waxcap

It starts off a bright red but fades to a yellow shade as it ages. There is a very similar but smaller Waxcap growing in my lawn.  You can see the scale from the photo.  I think this is the Splendid Waxcap with the appropriate name of Hydrocybe splendidissima.

Splendid waxcap

There is a Waxcap survey at the moment WaxcApp which uses an App that you download onto your phone .  All you have to do is say what colour the waxcaps are in the field you are looking at.  

Finally, another kind of fungus appeared in my pile of wood chippings - a cup fungus - Peziza species.

Courtesy of Google, which makes little videos of your photos, here is a video of some of the fungi I spotted yesterday.