Lichens at Juniper Hall autumn 2019 meeting

Schismatomma decolorans -Juniper Hall grounds
I've just discovered all my lovely photos from Autumn 2019... when will I find time to post them?

Ishbe and Ken

It goes yellow when scratched.

Settle's Top Ten Lichens 1.

A Happy New Year to all.

On 1st January I set off to three nature reserves close to Settle to take photographs of Lichens preparing for the talk "Settle's Top Ten Lichens"
I  wonder which ten lichens will be chosen?  Which would you recommend? 
 I visited Winskill Stones (Plantlife); Malham Tarn Estate (National Trust)  and Globe Flower Wood (Yorkshire Wildlife Trust)

It is the first day of our new decade    (2020 01 01)  

Come with me as I set forth to visit local nature reserves near Settle, 
to record my first lichens for January, 
complete with my poster.

First stop is Winskill Stones, 1.5 miles from Settle.
Plantlife Nature Reserve

The sun I had seen at 10am at breakfast time (late breakfast after the night before..)  is now hidden by clouds at midday..




Doesn't seem two days since the sign was brand new. It has a picture of Geoff Hamilton who campaigned to save limestone pavement.

Doesn't seem two days too since I was up here with the "immortal" David Bellamy in 18 July 1998 when he came to see the reserve and make a short film for Plantlife.  David died three weeks ago on 11 December 2019. No one is immortal.  I did enjoy hearing him talk about the plants we found down the grykes.  Memories go on.




The hole in the car park is getting bigger (see sign board in the background)



The famous view from the car park towards Lower Winskill Farm (white) in the distance. Note white flecks on the all tops.. I'll come to that later.



I  see we are on the #PennineBridleWay  See the route here

I (later) stand beside the wall of Winskill Stones and take a selfie.
Fountains Fell and Pen y Ghent which should be in the distance are in the clouds.



And from the same spot, looking back towards the car park (behind my red hat)



  The big white patches on the pavement rocks are.. 

Aspicila calcarea  

Yes.  I like to call  this  "White Limestone Wall-top lichen"


Aspicila calcarea  
pronounced (to help you remember it) Ass Pee Sillier
It seems to like sunlight and maybe bird droppings/ high nutrients.
-------------------------------

Next Stop three miles on: Malham Tarn:  Six miles from Settle


 
Every space in the car park IS taken - It is  bank holiday. 

I walk the 200m towards the Tarn. The Malham Tarn Estate now belongs to The National Trust

En route I find




Dung Roundhead in the grass in the foreground above - my first fungus of 2020  Stropharia semiglobata .
It gets its food and therefore energy from..     Dung.

Lichens are made of Fungi too, but lichens also contain algal cells  which can photosynthesise and make sugars.


  

On a small greywacke (siliceous rock) boulder in the same soil is a fruiting specimen of the lichen whose English name is Crottle also known as Stony Rag (Parmelia saxatilis) - 

Let's look at this more closely:

The grey thallus (body of the lichen) has ridges with white lines - that is what makes it Parmelia saxatilis instead of another species of Parmelia.

The older parts of the thallus have little lumps that stick up, like little fingers, or warts. They are called isidia.    The isidia are covered with the skin of the thallus..  

They break off and the tiny lumps (which contain both fungal threads and algal cells) blow away and land and can grow into a new lichen.  This is vegetative reproduction.

Lichen keys are always asking "Does the lichen have isidia or not?

Well Parmelia saxatilis does have  isidia.  

The cups with brown centres are the fruiting bodies - called apothecia.  The smooth brown part is made of fungal cells which produce tiny spores .. which blow away .. and if they are lucky enough land near a relevant alga and grow into another Parmelia saxatilis.



We approach the Tarn. The sluice gate was built first by the Ribblesdale family in the 18th C, then highered by Walter Morrison in the 19th c. - thus increasing the area of the Tarn

Where those stones in the foreground capping the stream wall are limestone, then that white lichen is Aspicilia calcarea

Look at the round sandstone block in the right foreground. It has some grey-green lichen on the surface .. including under my shadow.

With a hand lens  you can see this lichen too has apothecia, with white rims. Today they are quite moist

 Members of the genus  Lecanora have apothecia with rims like this, that look like "jam-tarts" 

This lichen has a thallus that is lobed, or at least pleated. (See the lobes at the bottom right of the picture) It is not just a crust:  Lecanora muralis is the only species of Lecanora that has these lobes - which makes it easy to identify

This is  common on footpaths and pavements in towns.

It is called "Chewing-gum lichen"

---------------------------------



Then it is off two miles back towards Settle to the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust Reserve (4 miles from Settle) of Globe Flower Wood

  


See a big white crustose lichen on the limestone wall top: 
It is White Limestone Wall-top Lichen (Judith's name) Aspicilia calcarea.. 

Oh look - I'm still promoting the talk.

Next to the Aspicilia calcarea is a moss:  Mosses are different to lichens - Mosses are green plants with leaves.  This one Tortella tortuosa, that grows on limestone, has leaves that spiral up when dry, and partially unspiral when wet.


I do hope you can come to Settle on 16 January to the talk on lichens. ..   7.30pm, St John's Church Hall BD24 9JH

Settle 2nd Global Climate Strike

Since the first strike two months ago in September, things have moved rapidly. Extinction Rebellion Events in London in October raised the profile of the environment catastrophe.

The media has become SO much better in reporting the climate events.  

The magnitude of events are increasing exponentially.

My list of changes in the past two months has gotten so long that I have had to put it at the end of this post.

SO: The second Global Climate Strike we have had a Settle, North Yorkshire, UK took place from 1pm-2pm Friday 29th November. (Settle and Giggleswick have about 3,500 people and the surrounding villages about the same.). Neighbouring Skipton 16 miles away had a strike at 9am on this day.

Again we were blessed by sunny weather.

We were joined by Andy Brown (of the Green Party) and Andrew Murday (of the Liberal Democrats).

One lady came with her two young children.

One young lady, a singer, who works in Germany, said how in Berlin there would be thousands of people striking.

One man wanted to strike with us, but for job reasons did not want his face put up on social media, so did not stay

Here are the two carols we sang: They come from the Christian Climate Action Carol Book by Grace Thomas of the Manchester Hub. https://christianclimateaction.org

I wonder when we look back at this "Twelve year's of crisis" carol in three years time whether we will laugh or cry.

We have had scientists warning us many years that these things were going to happen if we did not look after the climate.

They predicted bigger things such as the reversal of the Gulf Stream. That still has not happened. It will make Britain a much colder place if/when it does.

Perhaps when people picked the Ladies Slipper Orchid to extinction (bar one later discovered plant,) 150 years ago, they thought the world was "infinite". Now we know it is not.

Here are the words of the carols.
Twelve years of Crisis:..

Here is just the last verse - the twelfth year:

On the twelfth year of crisis, inaction gave to me,
Eleven wildfires raging,
(sing slowly) No turning back (pause) Ten displaced peoples, Nine glaciers dwindling,
Eight coral die-offs, Seven flood disasters, Six nations starving. Five rising seas.
Four crop failures, Three heatwaves, Two hurricanes And a forest without any trees
------------------------

The second carol is:

We wish for a greener Christmas

We wish for a greener Christmas

We wish for a greener Christmas

We wish for a greener Christmas

And a Low Carbon year

Sad tidings we bring To you and your kin

We wish for a greener Christmas

And a Low Carbon Year

We all want meaningful action We all want meaningful action

We all want meaningful action So bring some out here
We won’t stop until we’ve got some
We won’t stop until we’ve got some
We won’t stop until we’ve got some So bring some out here

We wish for a greener Christmas…

words from https://christianclimateaction.org

For news of Settle Climate emergency events

visit the Facebook page of of Settle Action on Climate Emergency.

Here is a LIST of

Events that have happened since the last climate strike just two months ago: (I just write this because this blog is a sort of diary)

We have burning fires in the forests in Australia. 

We have melting ice sheets. 

"Just down the River Aire" - (The Aire  starts six miles away from Settle), just down the River Aire, (c 80 miles) after it meets the Ouse, where the River Don meets the Ouse there has been drastic flooding, last month, especially in a village called called Fishlake.

We have reports (from non-NE individuals) of the Natural England staff (those that are left) struggling with their work because of lack of staff (due to cutbacks, and people being sent to work for Brexit.)

Reports of increased deforestation on the Amazon.

I went on a lichens "holiday", and learned how lichens on trees in Devon and Cornwall that should show pure air, actually show that there is SO2 in the air.  It is coming from the huge ships.

We are going to have an election on 12 December. We had a hustings with (only) "Environment Questions" for our candidates on 16 November in the Victoria Hall

 and then another Hustings with other questions on 27 November 

We have had sudden promises from all the parties that they will plant millions / billions of trees. - I worry a bit about this - This may wreck lots of good valuable wildlife sites. The landowners will choose to plant on the poorer soils and these are often the only good places left for wild flowers and wildlife. Restoring peat bogs is a much better and more permanent way of storing carbon.

 Yet that is not mentioned.  We have lots of peat bogs in Yorkshire.

Well, That's where we are now.

  

Must go away and practise my carols now so that I don't need to have sheet music to help me in future.

Settle Community Christmas Day Meal 2019

We will be having another meal together this Christmas at St John's Church Hall

If you would like to volunteer I would be REALLY pleased to hear from you early! Plus any suggestions about any changes! We are having a planning meeting on Monday 25 November at 4.30pm.

It is a compromise between making it "Greener" and providing the treat of having the usual Christmas Trimmings that people look forward to

ENjoy looking at pictures from previous years:

Settle Community Christmas Day Meal 2016

Many enjoy Settle Christmas Day Meal 2015 - Pictures

Settle Community Christmas Day meal 2014 - Pictures and videos

Cool Earth Coffee and Christmas Day Community Lunch 2010 at Settle

Living Well - Climate change - Settle - UK - the world- and what you and I can do

The graph below is a VERY QUICK way of finding the Carbon footprint of the main activities in my, and, for most people, your life.  I collected the data by surfing the web two years ago. 

I have printed copies of the leaflet available for people in Settle, and gave them out at the Eco-Hustings on 16 Nov 2019. You can pick up a copy in St John's Church Hall.

The first side shows climate change impact at Settle

You can download the pdf  here and print your own copy.

Fungi at Black Hill, Embsay - Barden Road

Please click here for Settle Community Christmas Day Meal 2019 

Here is the view from Black Hill 
(or Black Park) near Embsay
 - Are we looking at smoke from
bonfire night fireworks kept 
here by the temperature inversion?

6 November: It's the first Wednesday of the Month and the Craven branch of the Mid Yorkshire Fungus Group are out again - this month looking for waxcaps.

Look at that Waxcap over there!!

How are your olefactory skills?
 Smell (and imagination)  plays a big part.

This yellow wax cap is called Hygrocybe quieta and its English name is The Oily Waxcap
It smells of a greasy garage.
It is interesting that its namesake Lactarius quieta also has an oily smell.

Here it is growing in situe - amongst the Common Bent-grass and Springy Turf-moss

Peter spots this (reputedly rare)  "Pink Waxcap" or Ballerina"  - not very pink today but definitely the right shape

Parrot Waxcap

Heath Waxcap

I am delighted to learn the difference between Parrot Waxcap H psittasina (left) and Heath Waxcap   H laeta (right)
(and ashamed that I did not know the real difference before.).
They are both colourful and have slimy caps and stipes, and change colour slightly.
I used to think that Parrot Waxcap  was green at some stage in its life and Heath Waxcap  was orangey all the time.  But as you can see   H. laeta (on the right) can be a bit greenish too.

The difference?

1. If you look at the edge of the gills with a handlens you can see a translucent slimy margin to the gills of H laeta. 
This is not present in H psittasina. 

2. H laeta gills are decurrent. H psittasina gills are only adnate.

Both are supposed to be edible.

This is an interesting earth-tongue - I hope Archie will identify it.

I expect you know what this is

This, they tell me is H. aurantiosplendens.

Here is a youtube clip of us discussing whether it really is H aurantiosplendsens

And this is Cedarwood Waxcap - smells like pencil shavings.  Hygrocybe russociriacea

Peter brings some "perfume" chemicals. Iso E Super is an artificial perfume that smell s a  bit like Hygrocybe russo coriacea

Cordyceps militaris growing out of a dead chrysalis

Let's have a look at these fungi

We  find a Fairy Ring of Blewits

Closer - the Blewits are in the foreground

I also found Snowy Waxcap, Meadow Waxcap and Conical (Blackening Waxcap) and  Honey Waxcap and Scarlet Waxcap - so that makes eleven species of Waxcap.  


We'll be meeting again in a month's time in the first Wednesday of December.

On the 9th of November I will be at Whitby at the Yorkshire Naturalists Union  (YNU) AGM, listening to a talk on Seaweeds by Jane Pottas