YNU - Leeds University MSc Field Skills Training Day at St Chads, Leeds 2019: Lichens, Spiders, Seaweeds, Snails - AND FUNGI

Forty eager students arrive at Leeds for the first day of their  MSc Ecology course

. to be introduced to natural history by real live naturalists..

in St Chad's Parish Centre, Leeds - 25 Sept 2019 

(See also 2018 event and 2016 event) 
Walks in the churchyard and nearby will reveal hidden surprises






A team of members of the Yorkshire Naturalists Union, each a specialist or enthusiast in their own topic, have arrived with books,  specimens, toothbrushes and experience as necessary

- prepared to lead a group of four students out into the wilds in the near environs of Leeds and show them the secrets of their wildlife group.

This group will be looking at insects, including bees.  Last year  this group and videoed a bees nest.

This is the fourth year I have led a group looking at lichens, and I am joined by Eva, Mark, Tamsyn and Nicole.

The tree outside St Chad's provides seven species for us to find.

Today, with all the recent rain, the Xanthoria parietina looks green rather than yellow.  After this we will go and look in the Churchyard.

Near the foot of the tree is a circular patch of Lecanora muralis. now in the photo I also see Xanthoria ucrainica (yellow) and Phaeophyscia orbicularis

The cement blocks at the roundabout provide a variety of Caloplacas and Lecanora dispersa

On the lawn in the church grounds we find a big brownish waxcap - Any suggestions?  Hygrocybe irrigata?  It did not look orange enough for the meadow waxcap or pink enough for the ballerina (which I did find later) 

This gravestone with Porpidia tuberculosa is getting overgrown with vegetation.

Porpidia tuberculosa - Here's the same tombstone in 2016

Meanwhile Geoff Oxford is out searching for Spiders. The members of his group each have a Colgate Electric sonic toothbrush - these vibrate with the same frequency as a fly's wings.. so spiders come out expecting to catch a fly.

Inside, each group had a session with the North and East Yorkshire Ecological Data Centre learning how natural history records can be collected and shared. Clare and Mark still gong strong!

The seaweeds group is looking at fresh seaweeds brought in from the East Coast

We finish at 4pm 

The day after next the students will go to Malham Tarn Field Centre for a couple of days. A good way to start their course.

I hope some will consider joining, or at least finding out more about, the Yorkshire Naturalists' Union.


The church has won awards for its nature conservation activities.
I call in to see the new vicar.

I am delighted when she offers to show me a Collared Earthstar. (See end of blogpost)
I have not seen one before.

We go round the churchyard. She shows me to an almost scarlet Orange Peel Fungus 

How come I had walked past it with my four students?

Perhaps it just looked like confetti sprinkled amongst the artificial flowers on the grave. 

Dancing through the grass are three Ballerinas

I find a ripe fig on the ground beside the fig tree

Bolbitius vitelliinus - The Yellow Fieldcap now known as Bolbitius titubans

Weeping Widow - Lacrymaria lacrymabunda

Weeping Widow - Lacrymaria lacrymabunda

Weeping Widow - Lacrymaria lacrymabunda

And finally -- the collared Earthstar

Why not have a look in your local churchyard?

Find out if their is a fungus group near you.

Here is the website of the Mid Yorkshire Fungus Group

(See also 2018 event and 2016 event)

Global Climate Strike, Settle - Pictures and Flags 20 Sept

All round the world, on Friday 20 September 2019, Climate Strikes were held, in support of the Youth Climate Strike.  Settle held its very own strike on the cobbles outside a former bank, next to the plaque saying "Edward Elgar often stayed here".

Email me if you would like some higher resolution pictures.. and visit this post tomorrow (21Sept   in case I have added more.)

I arrived early (11am) to set up the table and posters and "prayer flag" making equipment.  I invited passers by to make a flag, answering the question "How to you feel about climate change and loss of forests and biodiversity?" (See poster top right)

 Being a Friday morning in September,  Settle was very quiet. But it was great to have individual conversations with people who stopped and to hear their views.

At 1pm,  the official time for the strike, twenty people arrived with lots of banners.

We had lost two or three activists who might have come because they had gone to the big climate march at Leeds. But we gained a pair of "green" cyclists on holiday from Leeds, and we gained a couple  who had read about our strike on 350.org and come all the way from  near Clitheroe

I stood on a chair and explained about the flags, and asked people to make themselves known.

Sarah Wiltshire stood up and told people about ACE Settle (Action  on Climate Emergency Settle)

Andy Brown a  Green Councillor for Craven District Council and Green Parliamentary Candidate stood up and told us about the need for a climate strike, and about all the activity that had been taking place in Skipton earlier that morning. Lots of school children there including the Montessori school had been there, and some children singing and others making speeches.


After the Settle "big crowd" left at 2pm I stayed on with the help of two people, encouraging more people to write flags. It was really good hearing individual peoples ideas as they filled in the flags. One friend arrived who had been at the Leeds Strike earlier that day. She said there were thousands of people.

Eventually at 3.30pm the schools came out, and I had some contributions from the youth of Settle. Some knew nothing of the strike, but others did. One girl told me how a teacher had not been allowed to strike but had worn a green band on her arm all day. She learned about the strike in her Spanish Class. 




Our minister Tim Broughton intends to use the flag idea in the Service at St Johns Methodist Church on Sunday 22nd, enabling people to write down their prayers on them. We will be having a christening - so will be thinking about the next 90 years (+) for the life if this child. 

Mid Yorkshire Fungus Group visit to Austwick Hall

First Wednesday morning of the month - so it's time for a Mid Yorkshire Fungus Group trip. - On 4 Sept 2019 to Austwick Hall by invitation of Michael Pearson.  The woodland is situated on a steep limestone slope, just above Austwick. It has a few tall Giant Redwoods and beech amongst sycamore and ash and some other conifers. We hear the primary school children in the distance below, outside at playtime in the morning - just returned after the summer holidays.- 

There are fifteen people all together including Archie and Ron and Jane.

One of the first that we found ??

On some thin branches/twigs on the ground that were old and had lost their bark were two fungi - both new to me. -  The translucent white jelly is not the normal one - this one has white bits in it. The  black one in the lower part of the picture with dots on it is a Eutypa - but the ones we saw last month at Keighley and the month before at Bolton Strid were on Oak so they were a different species. This one is  on sycamore so is Eutypa maura

Exidea nucleata (Myxarium nucleatum) Crystal Brain Fungus

and Eutypa maura

magnified below

Exidea nucleata (Myxarium nucleatum) 

Eutypa maura

Eutypa maura

Archie then tried to get me to identify the thin branch/twigs by looking at the xylem and rays..No, No.. another time maybe.

This is probably Crepidotus mollis

This is probably Crepidotus mollis - pity I did not know how to test it when I found this.  Later that morning Archie showed us how to stretch a Crepidotus mollis cap...

Crepidotus mollis

Crepidotus mollis is a fan-shaped fungus. It has a cap cuticle (skin) that readily peels away from the flesh. The skin is rubbery and transparent and can be stretched to at least double its length before it tears.

What are they all looking at here?

Ahh..

It's a pale tussock moth

Mycena haematopus

Taken form Wikipedia: Known as: bleeding fairy helmet, the burgundydrop bonnet, or the bleeding Mycena,:  The fruit bodies of M. haematopus have caps that are up to 4 cm (1.6 in) wide, whitish gills, and a thin, fragile reddish-brown stem with thick coarse hairs at the base. They are characterized by their reddish color, the scalloped cap edges, and the dark red latex they "bleed" when cut or broken. Both the fruit bodies and the mycelia are weakly bioluminescent.

Mycena haematopus

Debriefing

Moths at Lower Winskill

What did we find in the moth trap at Lower Winskill 28-30 August 2019? - Eco Explorers

Here are some of the moths:
(For the Adult Caddis, click here)

Autumnal Rustic  (Eugnorisma glareosa)

 Ear Moth (Amphipoea  agg)

 Ear Moth (Amphipoea agg)

 Copper Underwing (Amphipyra pyramidea)agg  possibly (they can only be separated in the hand)

The next set I have identified myself so they still need checking:

Purple Bar   Cosmorhoe ocellata

Feathered Gothic  (Tholera decimalis)

Antler Moth   Cerapteryx graminalis 

Centre-barred Sallow   Atethmia Centrago

I don't even guess the names of the ones below








Now some smaller ones:
What do you think they are?

Adult Caddisflies at Lower Winskill

I set up the Craven Conservation Group moth trap at Lower Winskill Farm so that we could have an activity looking at moths on 28-30 August. And of course Caddis.

I hope Sharron Flint  will be able to identify them for me..

Hydropsychidae 
Caddis have long antennae.. I wonder if I really need to photograph all the antenna for the sake of identfication.

I had said to Sharron 

"We are Moth Trapping at Lower Winskill. We won't get many Caddis because there is no stream there" She just looked at me. !!  (with an expression "You don't know how wrong you are)

OK. Above is Caddis no 1. Three more to come. and that does not count the 6+ that got away

Caddis number 2

This turned out to be the same as:

Caddis number 4

Ah, all the remaining three on the Wednesday and the one I caught on the Thursday seem to be the same.

When I sent the picture to Sharon she said
"You have Potamophylax sp there Judith. We have 3 sp in UK. Large Cinnamon Sedge! P.cingulatus, P.latipennis and P.rotundipennis. Need separation based on genitalia. At least we can get a genus from the wing pattern. Family, Limnephilidae."
and "Did you keep any voucher specimens?"



It was so windy on the last evening we might not find anything.. We'll see.


On the Friday morning I caught just one.




I think this one is Limnephilus lunatus

with the half/crescent moon "cut" into its end wing

Eco Explorers 2: 28-30 Aug. Book Now!

Fun for all!! See pictures of last months Eco Explorers Activities

See pictures of Eco Explorers 1 that met at the end of July:

Please encourage your friends to book. The more people we know are coming the more different workshop sessions we can organise.
We are grateful to friends in Craven Conservation Group who are helping run some of the workshops

and to Stories in Stone /Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust and to the Settle Rotary Club for financial support towards running the event.

We value everyone who comes!!!