A good day in the woods

November 28, 2022 by woodlander23 4 Comments

Yesterday turned out to be a more upbeat day for me and just what I needed. Hadn’t planned much as I had arranged to meet a pal but as it turned out he couldn’t make it. I filled the bird feeders and straight away a number of small birds arrived. If you read my recent blogs you know I was concerned about the lack of bird activity. As well as birds on feeders, I could see a fair amount of activity in the tree tops. I lost my previous friendly robin in the summer but there might be a new kid on the block. It hasn’t come close yet but is hanging around the periphery of where I’m working. I hope to spend more time at the woods now so hopefully it will start to get used to my presence and make friends.

The main point of interest was the fungi. Not so much last visit but quite a good variety to spot. I don’t know what this is though but makes a lovely autumn photo.

I filled my trugs with logs for the wood burner at home. I’ve been using it more recently in favour of putting the central heating on as much. I cut a piece of the sycamore I felled last time to take home and start making spoons again. I have an order of two cooking spoons for my nieces. I want to get back into doing some crafting work again and I was watching a video on making a sheath for a small knife using woven birch bark. I’d like to have a go at it. I peeled some from a dead tree but it was too decayed to use. You need to be able to get some longish intact strips. You can also use cherry which my neighbours have lots of. They arrived a little later, we had a good catch up and they offered to let me have a try at peeling some bark off a recently felled cherry tree. We laid a log down and I cut a line with a knife. The bark grain runs around the stem not up it. After carefully lifting it all along the cut, I pulled while they rotated the log. The bark came of beautifully, almost 100% intact. Sorry I didn’t have camera with me but I will have a go at making a sheath this week and post my results in the next blog. There are numerous craft items you can make with birch bark and I see no reason why cherry won’t work as well.

There’s still quite a lot of green on some of the leaves as you can see, mainly the hazel and oak. Not much else to talk about so will just leave you with some more fungi.

I believe these are one of several bracket fungi known as Turkey Tails.

We’ve seen this several times but it’s a nice example of Jew’s Ear, Wood Ear, or Jelly Ear which ever you prefer, usually growing on dead elder.

This might be Sulphur Tuft but not certain. Growing in profusion around a dead sycamore stump.