Fantastic Fungi in October!

October we are saying is the month Winter arrived...

The Month started off quite Autumnal and the reserve looked absolutely beautiful! When the sunshine arrived, the colour of the leaves really made the reserve look painted in gold!

Cleared Aspen Site

Throughout this month we have had our volunteers working extremely hard around the conversations centre. They’ve done a great job clearing a section of Aspen trees growing between the centre and the pond dipping area. The trees haven’t been killed off and are quick to regrow, so in a years’ time the area will look different once more!

We’ve not cleared all the Aspen in this area as the trees are closely associated with several moth species, so only the larger patch, where the trees were in danger of putting pressure on the Oaks have been cleared.

Deceiver Mushroom

Amethyst Deceiver

The Volunteers have also been busy relocating some wildflowers to the entrance way and down to the centre. Where work was carried out earlier in the year to open up some of the nature reserve to encourage wildflowers to grow there has been a huge mat of foxgloves. These will eventually out-compete each other, so not all will fully mature, so it is these which have been located. It should look lovely in the spring and early summer!

Some fantastic costumes!

This months events such as our Fungi Walk and of course, Halloween. On the Fungi Walk, we had guided tours throughout the weekend by expert Peter Coomber. In total we managed to identify 37 species of fungi, with more being found throughout the weekend too! Have a look at our Facebook page for a selection of photos of the fungi. We are always amazed at the variety of fungi which are in the reserve, which range from Orange to Purple to Red in colour. Some are simply beautiful! If you’re interested in fungi, or indeed wildlife in this area, make sure you have a look at the Essex Field Group annual exhibition, occurring on Saturday 5th December 2015, 11:00 - 4pm at Wat Tyler Country Park.

Pumpkins entered into the competition at Halloween

Halloween is an event which always gets a good crowd in and this year was our biggest event, with nearly 1,000 visitors enjoying the fun in a space of 4 hours. We had competitions running for the best pumpkins and best costumes, with some simply fantastic entries! A huge thank you must of course go to the volunteer scarers and members of staff who gave up their evenings to help and make you jump around the trail. We know we got a good few of you to scream!

October certainly saw the start of winter arrive, with most of the leaves starting to fall. One good thing about this time of year is that less leaves makes the wildlife easier to spot! This month our favourite spot was a beautiful Blue Pheasant, a shot by one of our visitors can be viewed online. We also had lots of Fallow Deer sightings as they display as part of the rutting season. With the leaves nearly all off for the start of November, it will be interesting to see what comes out next month!

Blue Pheasant