Monday 17 November 2014

Cullaloe Roundup

A quick visit on Sunday to check the reserve for fungi particularly.The reserve's had a hair cut in preparation for next year's wildflower growth



A nice damp and quiet corner of the reserve. Well, more in the middle really.


A few fungi around the place






And a few more lichens. Rich pickings if I could identify them!




Wednesday 12 November 2014

Old lichen from Cullaloe

Amazing looking thing. Maybe a chance to ID this now I have a book. Let's see ...


Friday 7 November 2014

Numbers

Things are a bit quieter now the summer's drawn to a close. A few fungi are being thrown onto the pile and hopefully the year list will end somewhere around 650 species. The total counts for the reserve at the moment look like this:


Class Total 2014
Vertebrate - Birds 141 81
Vertebrate - Other 23 4
Invertebrate - Lepidoptera 167 135
Invertebrate - Diptera 70 57
Invertebrate - Coleoptera 64 19
Invertebrate - Hemiptera 43 8
Invertebrate - Other 148 34
Plants - Vascular 273 153
Plants - Bryophytes 84 80
Fungi 72 65
Lichens 4 3

1089 639

The breakdown of this year's records has been quite similar to the overall breakdown, albeit inverts are naturally under-represented. At the start of the year fungi and non-vascular plants would have been barely showing at all..



There are some targets I'd like to reach overall which I will pay some attention to from now on. The year's target is so far behind it's not really interesting any more!

I'd like to get the bird list to 150, but there's not much I can actively do about that other than show up regularly. It could take ten years!

Lepidoptera I'd like to see at 200, and I'm sure that's doable in a reasonably short time span. Many micro moths have been ignored completely and there's plenty more macros to see too.

Fungi and bryophytes both I'd like to see at over 100 and those are moving along nicely. Finding new bryophytes won't be the most straightforward, but the total's close already. Fungi is just a question of sticking at it for a bit and we're right in prime time now with most new additions coming in this category.

I'd also like to see Hoverflies go over 50 (from 45), add a few flies and beetles, make a start on lichens and spiders

I guess I should think about where I'd like the total to be next year. I think I'll set the bar somewhere around 100 new species in 2015. That should be alright I think

Thursday 6 November 2014

Fungal foray

A quick tour of Cullaloe in search of fungi turned up some contenders yesterday. One I haven't seen, one I've seen before but not identified and one I may or may not have seen before - there are some lookalikes.

Also some very nice spreading Lophocolea bidentata on a log

Lophocolea bidentat

Common Rustgill

Wrinkled Club

A Tricholoma of some sort

Clitocybe fragrans