Low Weald Wildlife
Wildlife in and around Hadlow in the Low Weald of Kent, and further afield.
Saturday, 4 October 2025
Hever Castle - The Slate Bolete, Leccinum duriusculum
Tuesday, 30 September 2025
Dene Park to the SW of Hunters' Lodge
I checked the car-park Pine Log for the developing fruiting body, and found a previously unseen white bracket which apps said were a Postia, So it ought to be Postia stiptica or Postia tephraleuca.
Just before I reached the frontage of Hunters Lodge, two fruiting bodies of what I thought might have been Caloboletus radicans, close to a semi-mature oak on the edge of the wood - it certainly tasted bitter, no red layer below the pileus as in C. and not as red-tinged as in C. calopus found with Beech and conifers (occasionally Oak), so the commonest option seems to be the most likely as so often happens.
On a couple of logs there were multiple creamy partly zonate brackets with somewhat lumpy and a bumpy hairy upper surfaces and very long mazelike pores on the underside, so at first I thought possibly Trametes gibbosa, the Lumpy Bracket itself. I didn't think it was the Blushing Bracket, because it was not on Willow, was not zonate enough, and didn't blush (admittedly it was old though). Also not the Oak Mazegill, because not on Oak, not with the characteristic deep belly of the Daedalea and the pores just didn't look right. But still to be proven I believe! The underside was actually gill-like enough to suggest Birch Mazegill, Lenzites (now Trametes again?) betulinus! And that I am now nearly sure is what it is! The fallen trunk was most likely Sycamore or Horse Chestnut, but apparently that is still just possible.
Interesting rounded particles of "debris". I certainly need to come back to this one!
Outside the wood in the grassland to the north of the car park, there were about 5 nice Blushers, Amanita rubescens.
And also two nice chunky salmon-coloured Russulas! Sadly not identified.
Sunday, 21 September 2025
Arrival at Shortflatt
Thursday, 18 September 2025
Tomich driveway on arrival.
Saturday, 9 August 2025
Oldbury Wood in The Dry
The Smoky Bracket, Bjerkandera adusta or fumosa on a stump/post by the car park drive
Old brackets of the Oak Curtain Bracket, Hymenochaete rubiginosa, on the end of an old decaying oak log
Wednesday, 30 July 2025
Dunorlan Park with some Boletes
An afternoon wander around Dunorlan in the hope of finding the Podoscypha multizonata fruiting bodies, one of which I saw in 2025, but nothing visible yet this year.
However it was great to find what appeared to be my very first Ganoderma resinaceum, on the old struggling Oak by the Halls Hole Road car park.
Sunday, 22 June 2025
Possibly Harmandiola tremulae, one of the many gall midges in Cecidomyidae, on one of the "corner" Aspens by the first junction beyond the dog bin.
Two of these species form an ID pair, on the upperside and not projecting much below the lamina, H. tremulae the bigger, more globular with thicker walls, shiny red when mature and H. globuli, smaller, thicker necked sometime with a collar, and duller when mature. The larva of H. tremulae is a somewhat redder orange.