Smells and Spores

During the first week of November Snowdon received it's first significant snowfall but since then it has been washed away by lashings of rain. Down at Dol y moch we experienced our first frost of the season when the temperature edged below zero to minus 0.2 C on the 9th of November.I live a few miles west of Dol y moch towards the sea and here the temperature only got down to plus 3 C thanks to the warming effects of the 'Gulf Stream'.Without the frosts the trees are still hanging on to their leaves.....the birches and Larch trees have turned a warm yellow and look striking against the dun hues of oaks.You might remember that I mentioned in my last blog the scents and smells of autumn.Since then I have taken the opportunity when out in the countryside to try and recognize  individual scents and smells.For example,this morning I went for a bike ride to Aberglaslyn; my route took me across boggy flood plains, passed farms, through oak woodland dripping with dew, beneath tall beech trees standing in carpets of fallen leaves and finally into the gorge of the Afon (River) Glaslyn with its clear, cold  water cascading over  moss covered rocks.They all seemed to emanate their own distinct smell......it was fascinating.Next time you go for a walk, why not educate your nose!
Still on the topic of smell,over the last few weeks Ivy has been in flower producing a very distinctive musty ( not unpleasant ) scent.

Flowers of Ivy,Hedera helix showing stamen with pollen ( bottom right)

Mushrooms and toadstools (fungi) are of course one of the star attractions of autumn and the damp, relatively warm weather has promoted the development of their above-ground spore producing structures (fruiting bodies).

Sulphur Tufts, Hypholoma fasciculare

There is a fantastic range of shapes, colours, textures and smells. Some fungi are edible but some are deadly poisonous. The Sulphur Tufts shown above are not edible and can be mistaken for the Honey Fungus, Armillaria mellea a deadly parasite of trees.Both species look very similar and both grow around the base of trees.
One way to tell the difference is to check the colour of their spores by making a spore print like the one shown below.

To do this ,carefully remove the cap from the stalk of the mushroom and place it gills downwards on a piece of white paper  and leave for a day.The spores will be released from the gills and deposited on the paper making a beautiful pattern identical to the gills.In this case the spore print colour is purple/brown which indicates that the mushroom is the Sulphur Tuft.In contrast,the Honey Fungus produces a  pale cream spore print.

Down on the Glaslyn marshes I saw Greylag Geese, Goosanders, Little Grebe, Redshank, Heron, Wigeon and Turnstone. Lower down, at Borth y Gest, the children from All Saints and Earlsdon Primary Schools spotted a pair of Cattle Egret.
And finally there are still a few butterflies about like the Red Admiral in the picture below that was feeding on fermenting fallen apples in my garden between the 10th and12th of November.