autumn – The Beyonder

Fungus foray reveals the secrets of survival

Posted on November 4, 2022November 4, 2022 by andrew in Nature and Wildlife

SOARING temperatures and flash floods marked a summer where climate change concerns were never far from people’s minds.

**BLAZE OF COLOUR:** sunflowers at Chesham **PICTURE: Sue Craigs Erwin**

So after an unseasonally mild October, perhaps it’s a relief to finally feel the chill in the air on a starry Chilterns November night.

**SEPTEMBER SKIES:** birds on the wing outside Amersham **PICTURE: Gel Murphy**

Back in the hot, dry summer, temperatures soared to a new UK record temperature of 40.3C in Lincolnshire and much of the local countryside looked brown and parched, with hosepipe bans in place across large areas.

**EARLY START:** morning mist creates an inviting haze **PICTURE: Gel Murphy**

The joint warmest summer on record for England, and the fourth driest, it meant wildlife enthusiasts having to rise early to catch the countryside at its best before the searing heat of the midday sun.

**FEELING CHIRPY:** a stonechat at Widbrook Common **PICTURE: Graham Parkinson**

It takes patience and perseverance at the best of times to capture our native species on camera, but all the more so when they are taking refuge from such unpleasant heat.

**POLLEN COUNT:** hundreds of insect species pollinate plants **PICTURE: Gel Murphy**

What a delight, then, to savour the mellower temperatures of autumn and watch the sights, sounds and smells slowly switching to a different pace and palette.

**AUTUMN HUES:** trees start to lose their leaves **PICTURE: Sue Craigs Erwin**

Suddenly it’s crisper and colder in the mornings and darker evenings, though the woods are ablaze with colour as families look out their scarves and winter coats to make the most of the seasonal spectacle.

**SILENT SWOOP:** a short-eared owl in Oxfordshire **PICTURE: Graham Parkinson**

With Autumnwatch back on our screens and pumpkins suddenly swamping the shelves of local farm shops, a host of animals and birds are stocking up for the winter months.

**SEASONAL SPECTACLE:** woods are awash with colour **PICTURE: Sue Craigs Erwin**

And from the banks of the Thames to Ivinghoe Beacon, there’s no better time of year to venture outdoors to smell the ripening fruits and admire the beauty of the leaves as they change colour.

**SUNNY FACES:** sunflowers ready for picking **PICTURE: Lesley Tilson**

In just a few short weeks, the landscape has been transformed: from the August fields of sunflowers ripe for the picking, we have seen the dust of the combine harvesters blowing across the land and subtle changes in the light deeper in the surrounding woods.

**OUT OF THE SHADOWS:** autumn brings a change of light **PICTURE: Sue Craigs Erwin**

In the grounds of Windsor’s Great Park the autumn rutting season may have had an extra resonance for visitors this year following the death of the Queen.

**POLLEN COUNT:** deer at Windsor **PICTURE: Nick Bell**

After so many thousands swamped the town to pay their final respects, many returning ramblers might be only too keenly aware of the monarch’s absence from her beloved castle, with the current herd all descendants of 40 hinds and two stags introduced in 1979 by the Duke of Edinburgh.

**FINAL FLOURISH:** ferns capture the sunlight before dying back **PICTURE: Sue Craigs Erwin**

And from the historic Ridgeway to the depths of Burnham Beeches, a myriad other changes are taking place in this ancient and fascinating landscape, most noticeably the sudden golden glow as nature puts on its most spectacular fireworks display of the year.

**SNAZZY DRESSER:** the colourful jay **PICTURE: Graham Parkinson**

The autumnal leaf fall is a clever form of self-protection, allowing deciduous trees to drop thin leaves that would otherwise rupture during the winter, making them useless for photosynthesis, giving the tree a fresh start in the spring while the nutrients from the decaying leaves are recycled to help grow the next generation.

**RECYCLING PLANT:** fallen leaves and fungi in Hodgemoor Wood **PICTURE: Andrew Knight**

Amid all the leaf mulch, autumn is also one of the best times to head out foraging, with woods and hedgerows filled with a feast of delights from hazelnuts and rosehips to blackberries, sweet chestnuts and crab apples.

**FORMIDABLE:** the woods are home to a huge variety of fungi **PICTURE: Gel Murphy**

The woods play host to a formidable array of mosses, lichens and fungi too, but not all of the intriguing range of shapes and colours to be found among the soaking foliage are safe to eat, as their spine-tingling names might suggest.

**FRIEND OR FOE?:** many fungi are poisonous **PICTURE: Gel Murphy**

If you can’t tell a tasty morsel from a destroying angel, funeral bell or death cap, it’s perhaps best to give those colourful mushrooms and toadstools a wide berth.

**ANCIENT TABOOS:** not all mushrooms are magical **PICTURE: Gel Murphy**

Widely regarded as magical and equally frequently mistrusted, toadstools and mushrooms are associated with ancient taboos, dung, death and decomposition.

**SUPPORT NETWORK:** many species rely on fungi **PICTURE: Gel Murphy**

But as the Woodland Trust explains, trees and many other species rely on fungi and we’re only just starting to fully understand how close this relationship is: great woodland networks that link and support life.

**PLUSH PLUMAGE:** a little egret **PICTURE: Graham Parkinson**

As Gillian Burke explained in a previous Autumnwatch series: “90 per cent of our plants are utterly reliant on fungi for survival. By breaking down dead wood, cleaning the soil and recycling nutrients by the most intimate relationship with living plants, fungi are vital to life on Earth.”

**VITAL RELATIONSHIP:** fungi play a vital role **PICTURE: Gel Murphy**

At this time of year, those forest floors and woodland glades are full of colourful and intriguing characters, from puffballs and stinkhorns to earthstars and jelly fungi – and while many of them could be poisonous for us to touch and eat, it’s fascinating just how important they may be for our survival.

As always, we’d like to give a very big thank you to all the keen local photographers who have allowed us to use their work.

If you have a picture or two you would like us to feature, drop us a line by email to editor@thebeyonder.co.uk, join us in our Facebook group or contact us on Twitter @TheBeyonderUK.

Spiders’ webs and misty mornings

Posted on December 3, 2020December 30, 2020 by andrew in Nature and Wildlife

IT’S been a month of first frosts and misty mornings, fading fungi and the smell of fireworks.

**WINTRY WEB:** Willow Wood, Amersham *PICTURE: Sue Craigs Erwin*

It began with a final blaze of autumn colour in the run-up to Bonfire Night and Armistice Day, and ended with an icy blast, a reminder that winter is definitely on the way.

**BLAZE OF COLOUR:** Burnham Beeches *PICTURE: Olivia Rzadkiewicz*

November is a ‘game of two halves’ in many respects, starting with a fortnight of burnished golds, yellows and russet hues before the trees get stripped bare by fierce winds and driving rain, and we enter an altogether bleaker period of the year.

**BURNISHED GOLD:** Burnham Beeches *PICTURE: Andrew Knight*

Wordsmith, author and friend Alan Cleaver, better known in his neck of the Lake District by his Twitter monicker @thelonningsguy and for writing about the “corpse roads” of Cumbria, reminds us that Cumbrian farmers identify a fifth season of the year covering the dull, drab fortnight or so before winter properly sets in.

**INTO THE SUNSET:** Willow Wood, Amersham *PICTURE: Sue Craigs Erwin*

“Back End” is the term they use, and it somehow perfectly encapsulates this sullen no man’s land between autumn and winter, the ‘scrag end’ of the year.

Writing in his blog back in 2013, Alan wrote: “It’s such a blindingly obvious fact to most Cumbrians that you really do wonder how the rest of the world copes with a mere four seasons.

**LOST SEASON:** ‘Back End’ sees the last of the leaves falling *PICTURE: Sue Craigs Erwin*

“We’ve just entered the ‘lost’ season of Back End. It comes between autumn and winter when autumn’s lost its glory but winter is yet to bite. There’s some dispute but most people will place it around the first two weeks in December.”

No one is quite sure of the precise timing of this season, he concedes: “But we want to keep the rest of the world guessing. We’ve revealed there’s a fifth season – now let them work out when it is!”

**INTO THE WOODS:** misty walks mark the end of November *PICTURE: Sue Craigs Erwin*

As literary translator Antoinette Fawcett put it a couple of years later, “backend” is a “blunt-sounding word, plain and to the point. and…firmly associated with the northern counties of England”.

Northern roots or not, it’s perfect for summing up the dank, drab, lifeless feeling of some days in late November, when the light feels bleached and the undergrowth sodden. But not all days are like that – and chilly glimpses of winter sunshine uncover some hidden attractions.

**FROZEN IN TIME:** morning frost reveals some stunning patterns *PICTURE: Sue Craigs Erwin*

For a start, those crisper, clearer mornings reveal some stunning cloud patterns, glorious sunrises and mist-coated fields.

**MORNING MIST:** sunrise in Amersham *PICTURE: Lesley Tilson*

Evergreen trees and bushes provide a pleasant colour contrast and the array of berries provide rich pickings for native birds and migrants alike, like the wintering redwings arriving from Scandinavia, Russia and Iceland, or this tiny goldcrest, pictured at Burnham Beeches.

**SMALL WONDER:** a goldcrest at Burnham Beeches *PICTURE: Nick Bell*

Hawthorn, holly and mountain ash all provide valuable food sources for birds and small mammals during the winter months, along with blackthorn, juniper and dog rose.

**TWISTED TREES:** walking in Amersham *PICTURE: Lesley Tilson*

It’s that time of year when ladybirds huddle together in large groups and start looking for suitable sites to hibernate, sheltering under tree bark or leaf litter perhaps. Hedgehogs are seeking out a comfortable den after escaping the perils of bonfire night and badgers are pulling moss, leaves and bracken into their underground setts where they spend so much time snoozing.

**RED MIST:** sunset at Whiteleaf Hill *PICTURE: Anne Rixon*

Out on the local lakes and quarries the wildfowl are squabbling, the migrants have arrived in force and under and around the feeders the usual array of tits, squirrels, pigeons and blackbirds have been boosted by the occasional less familiar markings of a magpie, nuthatch, pheasant or parakeet.

**SURPRISE VISITOR:** a parakeet drops in for a peanut Hill *PICTURE: Andrew Knight*

Out in the woods the fungi may have faded but the mosses and lichens are creating a colourful carpet over the roots and branches, with many trees looking as if they are boasting furry green pyjamas.

**GREEN CARPET:** mosses and lichens coat the tree roots *PICTURE: Sue Craigs Erwin*

December is almost upon us, with the forecasters warning of icy blasts, though with no immediate threat of snow on the horizon, here in the south at any rate. Does that mean we are still in the “backend” season, then? I guess we need our farming friends in Cumbria to let us know about that.

A big thank you to all the keen local photographers who have allowed us to use their work this month. If you would like to contribute any pictures, favourite moments or seasonal suggestions to our calendar entry for December, contact editor@thebeyonder.co.uk on email or via our Facebook group page.

Woods come alive with autumn colour

Posted on October 15, 2020July 13, 2023 by andrew in Nature and Wildlife

CHILLY nights and rainy days can turn your favourite walk into a muddy morass and take some of the fun out of autumn rambles.

But brighter days in October and November are a perfect time to capture autumnal colour when the sun breaks through the clouds and turns local parks into places of wonder and mystery.

Nowhere is more inviting in the sunshine that Burnham Beeches, a national nature reserve on the doorstep that is also a site of special scientific interest and special conservation area.

Much of Burnham Beeches was once wood pasture, with a mix of young and mature trees standing in open grassland or heathland. This type of habitat has been created by land use going back thousands of years, where the trees or pollards harvested for timber and the grassland beneath would be grazed by livestock.

The constant regrowth encouraged by oak and beech pollarding extends the lives of the trees and older trees often have features such as hollow rotten stems, dead or decaying branches and loose bark which can be a great habitat for animals, plants and fungi, some of which are very rare.

Dog walkers and families out for a weekend stroll quickly disappear into the 500 acres of beech woodland, and a map of paths and trails offer the opportunity to escape from other visitors, especially on weekdays and out of season.

This is also a very different world from your visits back in the spring (below), with so many of the vivid greens replaced with russets, reds and golds.

There has been woodland here since the last Ice Age and people have used the site since at least the Iron Age, as evidenced by the Seven Ways Plain hill fort located in the south west part of the Beeches.

And if the landscape looks familiar, it might be because the proximity of Pinewood, Shepperton and Bray studios have made this a perfect filming location, with everyone from Robin Hood to Harry Potter and James Bond using the Beeches as a backdrop for their woodland adventures.

Mind you, the same can be said for nearby Black Park, another perfect escape for families needing some fresh air, with a big adventure play area for youngsters wanting to let off steam and an extensive network of surfaced tracks to walk, cycle or run.

And since the park is spread over 530 acres, it allows older teenagers and more ambitious walkers to lose themselves for a little on the less well-trodden paths.

Although the area round the 14-acre lake and popular cafe tends to be packed with families and dog walkers at weekends, it’s still possible to get away from the crowds – especially during the week or early in the morning, when many of the pathways through the towering trees can be virtually deserted.

As part of the historic Langley Estate, Black Park was first mentioned in 1202 and has been in the ownership of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, although it is now one of three country parks in the area managed by Buckinghamshire County Council.

Nearby Langley Park is another favourite autumn retreat, offering a peaceful oasis of colour and tranquillity looking out towards Windsor Castle.

This is a world of pooh sticks and Eeyore houses, where toddlers decked out in bobble hats and wellingtons are kicking leaves and splashing in puddles like generations before them.

For those wanting an even more spectacular vista, there is also the sprawling Cliveden Estate, 376 acres of magnificent Grade I listed formal gardens and woodlands with panoramic views over the Berkshire countryside.

Owned, managed and cared for by the National Trust, the dog-friendly grounds slope down to the River Thames and feature a number of woodland walks suitable for families, as well as perfect picnic spots for when the rain lets up.

This estate was the meeting place for political intellectuals in the 1920s and 30s, and in the early 1960s was the setting for key events in the notorious Profumo sex scandal that rocked the Macmillan government.

In 1893, the estate was purchased by the American millionaire William Waldorf Astor, who moved to Hever Castle and left Cliveden to his son Waldorf when he married in 1906.

The young Astors used Cliveden for entertaining on a lavish scale and it’s not hard to see how the spectacular location made it a popular destination for film stars, politicians, world leaders and writers of the day.

Witty, glamorous and fashionable, Nancy became a prominent hostess among the English elite and followed her husband into politics, in 1919 becoming the first woman to sit as an MP in the House of Commons.

That sense of history is all about you here, on the banks of the Thames – memories of autumn walks across the centuries where the timeless beauty of the trees has provided a backdrop to countless human dramas, hopes and fears…

For more information about Burnham Beeches, visit the City of London website. For Black Park, visit the park’s website and Facebook page or call 01753 511060. For Langley, visit the website or call 01753 511060. For more information about Cliveden, see the National Trust website.

Check out our nature guides page for things to do in the woods and our What’s On page for other local attractions and special events.