Over successive days this week I have taken the opportunity to track and record the fruiting cycle of an uncommon English mushroom, the enigmatic and tantalisingly attractive Magpie Inkcap (Coprinopsis picacaea), in Beech woodland in the Oxon Chilterns.

This began when choosing somewhere to go on Sunday (25th), a sunny first day of the detested dark season, I opted for a location near Nettlebed where Firecrests (the bird) might be found. After wandering around for a bit I met an enthusiast who was photographing something in the leaf litter with quite sophisticated paraphernalia. Guessing that must be fungi I engaged with him and he pointed out first some red Sickener mushrooms and then Magpie Inkcap (pictured below) growing from beneath a fallen log.

My researches now suggest it is quite unusual to find such a group since fruit of the latter fungus most usually occur singly or are at least well spaced. Having been introduced to this interest myself recently I soon forgot about the initial purpose giver for being there, and why not? The insect season is over for another year and the national birding action, though exceptional continues to occur mostly in the remotest outposts of the British Isles, way beyond both my preferred distance range and means. To put things another way I was in an apt frame of mind to be receptive to some late autumn fungi.

I had first come across Magpie Inkcap in another nearby Beech wood two years ago (pictured below). This thing of dark and delicate beauty occurs infrequently in much of the British Isles, but is found throughout continental Europe most usually in areas with alkaline soil and especially Beech woods, as well as in parts of North America; not to mention in the Chilterns.

Monday (26th) was the only forecast sunny day of the week ahead and so I returned to the same place. Exploring a little further I became amazed and captivated in equal measure by the sheer quantity and variety of colourful, alluring and photogenic fungi all around the forest floor. Things soon felt similar to being back in Portugal or the south of France seeking out and taking pictures of insects. The Inkcap group of the previous day had evolved into the large bell shapes (pictured below) and my curiosity was suitably piqued.

Reading up on things when I got home, I learned the poisonous Magpie Inkcap fruit bodies evolve through a sequence of shapes – egg to gherkin, then opening up to bell-like – through their short lived emergence. The patterning of white or silvery grey breaks into separate patches to reveal the glossy dark brown background as the reproductive cycle of spore dispersal progresses. The stalk is white, hollow and not very stable, slightly tapered towards the top and covered with scales. Eventually, at around day four by my observations the brim of the cap rolls up and dissolves, then the cycle is complete and the stalks collapse. 

Over the six days covered by this post I observed that sequence in three different specimens near by that initial group at Highmoor Common Wood (SU704856). This is presented in the mixed sequence above, captured wearing waterproofs and with the aid of a garden kneeler as I performed contortions in the leaf litter on the damp forest floor. At one point a passer by just had to call out: “Are you all right?” and yes thank you I was.

The following individual sequences show the daily progress of two of the Magpie Inkcap I tracked. At least in this study period, which was punctuated by heavy showers and spells of prolonged rain, there appeared to be a four day fruiting cycle that possibly shortened as the wet conditions persisted. I have used simplified language in discussing all this. For a more scientific treatment see here.

The second sequence (above) illustrates perfectly the four part cycle observed in each specimen, through egg to gherkin then into bell shape before the fruit begins to dissolve and collapse. But this further example #4 (below) was perhaps the finest of them all. One after another through six days I witnessed these emerging through the leaf littler from the underground network of threads that forms the main structure of this group of fungi, to put on the superb show recorded here. I felt glad indeed to have experienced something truly new and different in nature as winter commences.

On Wednesday (28th) I also checked out another woodland, Icknieldbank Plantation (SU668915) on the Chiltern Ridgeway below Swyncombe Down, finding another cluster. The only fruit here not to have gone over was a partially scale free specimen (pictured below) that I revisited the following day but did not track through the full cycle.

In my limited experience of fungi, the Magpie Inkcap of this post is definitely my favourite to date. But the Highmoor Common site was populated by an array of other highly attractive, weird and wonderful items. This has been a very welcome diversion and project through the first week of winter, and something I will definitely take more interest in come the autumn of 2021.

As of today Kings Copse Park Botanical Gardens (KCP BG) is the proud custodian of a good-sized Helicodiceros muscivorus tuber. This seriously weird Aroid is a must have for collectors, involving as it does scope for imagination above the median and a reputation for producing amongst the world’s top 10 foulest smelling flowers. If planted in autumn tubers make foliage through the winter months before blooming in spring. Then the foliage wilts and the plant goes into semi-dormancy until the cycle begins again.

Not surprisingly yours truly wanted one too upon seeing pictures when I first started collecting Aroids in the spring of 2018. So on finding the plant offered for sale a few months later by Adventurous Plants at what seemed a very low price of £4.50 I took the plunge. Though described as being a few years from flowering size that tuber was puny and did not put on any bulk at all in its first two seasons, but I nonetheless resolved to make cultivating and bringing it to bloom a life’s ambition.

All that changed earlier this month when on resolving to join the wait list at RarePlants.co.uk I found rather more substantial H muscivorus actually available for sale, this time for £21.50. Imagine the thrill when on snapping one up the wait list was immediately re-instated and the plant again became listed as out of stock. To put things another way I must have got the last un-reserved one. A number of other suppliers have similar waiting lists. Obtaining one is not easy as they are such a sought after item.

This is the only plant of the Helicodiceros genus, known colloquially as the “Dead Horse Arum” and also “Pig Butt Arum” or “Ass Plant” on the other side of the Atlantic. Those anal American associations no doubt arise from the way it looks as much as the infamous smell. The foliage is a pale matt-green and in my view the remarkable inflorescence, perhaps depending on the angle from which it is viewed, has a beguiling suggestiveness some way beyond animal rear ends: large, flesh coloured and covered in hairs.

The above 19th century illustration possibly conveys that observation more than published pictures. My own supplier prefers a rather more polite resemblance to an Aardvark’s ear “in shades of flesh-pink and jade-green blotched all over with purple and emerald”. Take your pick. “Dragon’s Mouth” is another, less well used common name.

In the wild this Aroid grows only on rocky, coastal cliff tops in the Tyrrhenian and Balearic Islands of the Mediterranean (pictured below). But responsible suppliers such as I have sourced mine from grow their own from cultivated stock, and judging by the number of pictures on-line there are plenty of Helicos in circulation both in Europe and the USA.

This is one of a rare group of plants with the ability to raise their own temperature above that of the surrounding air through thermogenesis. This simulates the warmth given off by the biological functions involved in decomposition, while emitting a strong putrid odour of rotting meat to lure pollinating flies into the inflorescence. The spathe waits for a warm and sunny day before unrolling so the smell spreads far and wide, but blooming is short lived since the pollination process lasts for just two days.

The flesh-toned bloom’s resemblance to a natural animal orifice also assists in pollination as blow flies are drawn right into the floral chamber where they become trapped and in trying to escape transfer pollen between the male and female flowers. On the first day only the female flowers are receptive, peaking at around midday in tandem with the odour. The pollinators remain trapped until the following day when the male flowers become fertile. Then the plant loosens its constriction allowing the flies, well dusted with pollen, to escape only to be trapped again in another plant, ensuring cross-pollination.

But it is not only insects that assist in the propagation of H muscivorus. In the Balearics this most curious plant has developed a specialised relationship with an endemic reptile. Liford’s Wall Lizard (Podarcis lilfordi) is known to be attracted to the odour of rotting meat and also for exploring any potential source of its small invertebrate, plant matter and carrion diet.

Once drawn by the Dead Horse Arum’s stench they enjoy basking on the warm spathes (above left) while taking advantage of the abundance of flies. And attracted by the amplified buzz of trapped flies from within they will actually enter the floral chamber (above right) to catch them. In doing so this lizard has learned to also eat the plant’s berries (pictured below), and hence it has become a major seed disperser. Studies indicate that seeds which pass through the reptile’s digestive system are twice as likely to germinate.

My article earlier this year on the English Cuckoo Pint (see here) has been well referred to in this journal. So I have also searched for anecdotes and folklore concerning their exotic Mediterranean cousin of this post, but without success. Likewise I have uncovered no Helico medicinal or culinary uses. But the “Dead Horse Arum” appears to have been quite a focus for scientific study, particularly concerning mimicry in plants to attract pollinators, which is true of many Aroids. And in all the published material it is difficult to get away from THAT smell.

Anyway I now have one, the most costly and perhaps challenging Aroid acquired here to date. My new acquisition is supplied as being two years from flowering size (FS2). I shall cherish and nurture this latest addition to my currently 29 species strong collection indoors through the coming winter and beyond until such time as it HAS to go outside.

The re-found wanderlust that had seized me in recent days didn’t end with the events of the previous post, as after Ewan called on Sunday to enquire whether I fancied going birding I found myself heading off again for the third time in five days. The options offered were the Hants Wilson’s Phalarope or a Radde’s Warbler in Sussex. As I had already done the first we agreed on the latter of those that might have been a second ever record for both of us. But the excursion’s outcome was eventually something quite different (pictured below).

Mid-Monday morning saw us arrive at Seaford Head (TV499979), where from the public parking area we walked out to a scrubby area in the centre of a golf course. There we found five other birders some of whom had been in place since dawn without re-finding the Radde’s. As in Cambs five days before, another typical Warbler twitch was in progress involving scanning a large area of habitat in the hope of glimpsing a small skulking bird.

It made sense to stick around for a while having come all the way here. There had been a spate of sightings around England of this Siberian breeding drift migrant through the week just passed, but as we waited and checked news from elsewhere it became plain those birds still present on Sunday had mostly moved on. After an hour we gave up on things here too, most of our fellow birders by then having also gone on their way.

Seaford Head is an impressive sight from distance (pictured above left). I was glad we didn’t need to go near the cliff edge, since vertigo has affected me at other less lofty coastal locations often enough in the past. I also wondered exactly what the rules might be when golf balls are driven over the edge. To the east, the Seven Sisters (above right) stretched away towards the distant Beachy Head along this section of Sussex coastline. Both outsourced pictures are © rights of owner reserved.

The question now was what to do next. Ewan lived in Sussex for some years in the past and has detailed knowledge and long experience of the county’s prime birding locations. I was interested to encounter again the Purple Sandpipers that roost at high tide, and which I observed previously in February 2017, on the east pier of nearby Newhaven’s port area (TQ451000). And though it is early in the PS season and not knowing the present state of the tide we opted to go there and take a look.

• 

• 

• 

As we approached I commented the tide looked in but my colleague explained that at high tide the water level is much nearer the top of the rather unusual structure (pictured above, top as we found it). We still walked out to the end of the pier looking down towards the sea level piling all the while, but found only Turnstones. We had now drawn blank twice, so where to next? I was not keen to go to Pennington again but likewise appreciate it is unwise to try to dissuade my companion from doing anything he sets his mind on, and he was driving today.

Fortunately Ewan now found on the Sussex grapevine a Red-throated Diver at Pagham Lagoon to the west near Bognor Regis, so we set off for there. This is not of course an especially scarce sighting on the south coast in winter, though most are viewed some way offshore. But I myself had seen well only two previously, and opportunities to observe one on an inland water body are quite unusual, so I felt pleased to have this chance now.

Though I have been to neighbouring Pagham Harbour on numerous occasions, I was unaware of Pagham Lagoon (SZ 883969) until this visit. On parking in Lagoon Road we were at once approached a little anxiously by a local resident, who when she realised we were birders soon warmed to our presence. This lady explained that like many places in the current Covid climate the neighbourhood and its nature reserve is experiencing pressure from general public that arrives in numbers to engage in variously intrusive activities.

We then, with our newly found host’s blessing, walked out to and around the lagoon and soon found the first winter Red-throated Diver (pictured above) quite close in to the shore. For the next hour we watched the bird moving around the water before us, diving all the while, and at times it would do a disappearing act for quite long intervals. My colleague being more experienced with the species now explained the diagnostics of spotted upperparts, a reddish patch on the throat and the upturned lower mandible of the bill.

I could see this bird was quite distinct in its appearance from the other two wintering British Diver species I have observed as closely in the past, and am pleased to have now taken pictures of a kind (see here) of all three at inland locations. I was surprised to find upon checking that there are only two previous RTD in my life lists, but dare say more have been pointed out to me some distance out to sea that I didn’t bother to include in my records.

It was now 15:00 pm and the weather was deteriorating. So my day’s driver felt no inclination to brave a wet and windy Pennington Marsh, and instead we repaired to a nearby bakery for sustenance before heading home. It had been a decent enough outing for me despite having connected with just one bird target out of the three attempted.

The presence of a seemingly settled Nearctic wader on the Hampshire coast was a sufficient draw to tempt me out for a second time in three days. A restlessness had settled on my spirit after a day on the road on Thursday, and this shorter distance twitch (87 miles) would fill the day ahead quite nicely.

Wilson’s Phalarope is an annual vagrant to the British Isles, with most records being of juvenile birds such as this one in autumn. I had seen two previously at Staines Reservoir, Surrey in 1997 and Vange Marsh, Essex in September 2015 (see here). But those sightings had both been distant so the attraction now was the exceptionally close views the Hants bird was said to be offering, and hopefully the opportunity to take my first pictures of the species (below).

I arrived on site at Pennington Marsh just before midday, using the small parking area at the end of Lower Pennington Lane from Lymington SO41 8FU (SZ318927). This area of the 1200 hectare Lymington & Keyhaven Marshes LNR, administered by Hampshire County Council and the Hants and IoW Wildlife Trust (see here), regularly attracts scarcer passage waders. My own past records here are Pectoral Sandpiper (Aug 1997), Semipalmated Sandpiper (Sep 2013) and Long-billed Dowitcher (Sep 2016 – see here).

According to RBA the Phalarope was frequenting the south-eastern end of Fishtail Lagoon, one of the several saline water bodies that lie behind the sea wall. I remembered the location from previous visits here but still checked with birders walking the other way to be sure. A small crowd of possibly 20 observers was pointed out in the distance, but on my arrival they were dispersing as apparently my quest had flown.

At first I walked back along the sea wall to scan for the bird but soon reasoned it would be better to re-join the remains of the group and see what transpired. When I got back there was the Wilson’s Phalarope just inside the wire fence at the water’s edge, but it at once took off again to land on a muddy spit further out. There I watched it partially obscured for some minutes before it flew off again.

The first priority of seeing the bird had thus been attained and it now remained to try to get some pictures. Being told by some people around me that the WP favoured this spot and would keep coming back, I elected to stay there and wait rather than chase it up and down the lagoon. Eventually it was called approaching again, then one of my companions said it was moving through the long vegetation on our side of the fence. Cue the unusual study below.

Once it had moved through the fence and onto the water the WP proceeded to put on quite a show as apparently it had been doing all morning. The behaviour of this largest and longest billed of the Phalaropes is very different from its more common Red-necked and Grey cousins. The latter two both swim hyperactively while spinning and pecking at the water’s surface for food. Wilson’s wades much more, swimming far less persistently and it is more at home on land. Today’s bird demonstrated all this to good effect as I watched it on and off for more than an hour, sometimes down to less than 10 metres. The issue at closer range was the fence that spoiled any pictures taken, but when it moved further away I managed some reasonable images (below).

While all this was going on I received news of the huge dawn twitch that had taken place just within Cambridgeshire where the Lammergeier had catered for a further county’s listers by roosting overnight at a farm beside an open road. Now it had been wished “Rise today … and all that” by more than 100 birders, whose parked cars must have pleased the farmer no end. I myself have participated in enough such events over the years but it is not a scenario I especially enjoy. I felt glad to have done these two twitches of my own in the order that I did.

At 14:00 pm the Phalarope suddenly flew high then departed south towards the Isle of Wight, so I decided to head home feeling more than pleased with the day’s outcome. The bird returned around 90 minutes later and was reported again in the same location through several more days. Two Grey Phalarope were also present in the period covered by this post, but I didn’t see them myself.

This day’s events demonstrated again how despite my lack of birding in 2020 I will still get up and go quickly enough if there is something to see at reasonable distance and with a purpose. One of the most newsworthy and popular rarities around England this summer and autumn has been a roaming first summer Lammergeier (or Bearded Vulture) that has strayed from a re-introduced Alpine population. So when that bird turned up in an easily accessible location just 110 miles or something over two hours from home … well, I got up and went.

My adventure began mid-morning with a message from the county birding colleague who, quite by chance on 21st September while hanging out the washing in her mother’s back garden, had seen this bird pass over her village to the west of Oxford. I now learned that “her bird” was in Lincs and she was concerned that it might not be very well. Checking RBA I found the vulture had been present since early morning in a tree beside a school in the village of Moulton Chapel just to the south-east of Spalding, having roosted overnight.

A Radde’s Warbler had also been reported for a second day 10 miles away so the prospect of twitching both birds made the journey seem worthwhile. It felt good to be on the road again, as usual on these occasions, and as I drove a familiar route past Northampton, Wellingboro’ and Oundle I felt a distinct cleansing of the system after so much time spent at home recently.

At the Radde’s site just north of Peterborough that other bird had not been re-found since the earlier report, none of the 10 birders present had any idea where it was and there was a huge amount of habitat in which it might be. The time was now 14:30 pm and a typical warbler twitch was clearly in progress, so it made sense to prioritise the Lammergeier, it being a lifer. I had a RW once before in Norfolk in October 2016 (see here). Today’s was not seen again.

After moving on the short distance northward, the issue was where exactly to go. The vulture had flown west later in the morning and the most recent report cited: “in field just E of the A16 from Queen’s Bank”. So often directions put out by birders are in this kind of rather localised shorthand that only people living nearby are likely to understand. What was Queen’s Bank? A road, a flood defence, a sports centre … no as far as I was able to learn a farm. There was no post code, grid reference, access instructions or anything that might assist first time visitors to the area.

So I drove north along the A16 taking each eastward turn in search of parked cars and birders. Eventually I reached a road called Drain Bank N at the end of which a rough track ran south-eastward parallel to the trunk road. Following that I caught sight of what looked like a large raptor flying in the middle distance then from the end of the track at TF 25954 19089 there was a second sighting. But I could not be sure whether either had been of my quest, and both soon dropped below the tree line.

I now called RBA to seek clearer guidance that was indeed forthcoming. The vulture had last been reported flying towards the next village of Cowbit, that was recognised by both my SatNav and Google maps so I knew I was not too far away. Driving back along the track to a more open area I stopped the car and at once saw a raptor drifting west to east above the tree line that was so big it had to be the Lammergeier.

This is a jinx bird that had eluded me in a number of locations abroad. So I felt pleased my first experience of it was now self found. I set up my scope and waited but it did not re-appear. At 15:40 pm I checked RBA again and the bird had just landed in a tree in Cowbit. This time there was both a street name and post code, and I headed straight there. All doubt, as I like to feel was about to be removed.

When I arrived on site along a road Barrier Bank the parked cars and assembled birders could not be missed. The Lammergeier was indeed perched in a Willow tree at around 200 metres, behind the roofs of Ashtree Nursery PE12 6AQ (TF256181). I gasped out loud on first beholding this bird’s huge, dark, brooding presence as it turned it’s head slowly from side to side, then continued watching it for maybe 20 minutes.

Unfortunately and as so often happens, a few people just had to try to get closer and walked around to the far side of the nursery, flushing the bird. It then flew off to land in the top of the tallest tree on the horizon, to be instantly mobbed by the local corvids but the interloper seemed unconcerned by their attentions. It was still readily viewable from the road at that distance and remained there after my own departure until dusk, roosting overnight.

The movements around England of this extraordinary visitor have been well documented. But to recap it was first seen over a West Midlands garden on 26th June, then settled in the Peak District of Derbyshire, initially in the north-east of the National Park to the west of Sheffield, and later in the north-west near Glossop above Manchester. There were fears for the young bird’s safety in this adopted home, being prime grouse shooting country in which illegal raptor persecution is prevalent. But the level of publicity surrounding the star visitor by all accounts contributed to dissuading gamekeepers from blasting a carrion feeding vulture from the skies.

Anxiety nonetheless grew when reports ceased in early September, but it was viewed again on 20th heading south over Leics, and a day later came the Oxon sighting. It was then expected to return to the European mainland but instead diverted to Norfolk around which it was seen a number of times towards month’s end. Current concerns over the bird’s health arise from the possible unsuitability of the flat expanses of agricultural land it now chooses to remain in, where there may not be enough carrion for it to feed on.

The British Ornithologist’s Union Records Committee (BOURC) does not recognise the bird, deeming it as coming from a population that is not in their interpretation self sustaining. But this is a matter of contention amongst many of the British birders who have taken the opportunity to connect with what is only the second Lammergeier to occur nationally.

I myself felt reluctant to travel the required distance earlier in the year, given this vulture’s cited lack of provenance, rather ragged appearance until more recently, and the wildness of its frequented locations. But it was one of only four regularly occurring species in south-west Europe I still needed for my life list. So I am making that addition now until such time as I might encounter a fully kosher item abroad, and what a magnificent sight it was. This is also my 360th British bird, none of which were recorded in Scotland or the Scillies.

Footnotes:

1. By lunch time on 9th, after much searching of online mapping resources, I found that Queen’s Bank and the farm of the same name are actually to the south of both Moulton Chapel and Cowbit, there is no direct access from the A16, and that finding it must require a familiarity with local minor roads. So given the vagueness of the directions that actually went out I feel even more satisfied to have self found my first ever Lammergeier in a different location, ahead of all doubt eventually being removed.
2. On 13th October the results were published of genetic research into this bird’s origins (see here). This shows it is indeed a first summer female that hatched in a wild nest in a re-introduced population in the French Alps. The hugely popular bird departed these shores near Beachy Head in Sussex at 14:00 pm on Thursday 15th.