Habitat tips

[richickle]

Hi everyone,

Going out for a family walk today looking for specimens and I want to find as many different ones as possible to practice id.

What sort of habitat would I be best looking at this time of year? I was thinking of deciduous woodland as it rained overnight and is now damp and cool.

Any other suggestions would be very welcome...

Hope to have some pics on here for you this evening.

Rich

[Lancashire Lad]

Almost impossible to answer this correctly Rich, as our fungi friends seem to appear in just about every habitat you could think of.

I've recently been discovering most of my finds just by wandering around in local woodlands. (and the less well managed the wood, the better the fungi prospect from what I can see - old fallen logs/branches/leaf litter being prime areas for examination).
It doesn't seem to matter whether deciduous or conifer habitat, although that can obviously affect what species are around.

Steep wet banks seem to throw up many varieties, the micro-climates created in the undergrowth below dense brambles & nettles etc. are also very good. At this time of year, even just looking amongst the grass in fields should produce a good variety - particularly in grazed fields.

In fact, if you can persuade your family to walk slowly, in the traditional posture of fungi reverence (head down looking at what your next footstep might be about to tread on ) you should easily find a multitude of varieties.

Unfortunately, many of them will be nigh-on impossible to identify to species level, but that's all part of the fun. (Well That's what I keep trying to convince myself anyway ).

Happy hunting,
Regards,
Mike.

[SheffieldLass]

You may have already set off, but ...

I find coniferous woodland is good much of the time, and is quite good at the moment. Upland oak is not very productive it seems, at least the woodland near me, at any time, with just 2 yesterday (a single Inocybe sp, and a single Russula sp), though I didn't venture very far as it was a very quick walk. The unimproved grassland at the moment hasn't got much on either, yesterday found just 2 Hygrocybe, a few Panaeolus and a Psilocybe, plus some old remnants of Lycoperdon. It had a good flush a week or so ago, but seems a bit quiet at the moment. I'm just off out shortly to check the grassland at the other end of the site, but not expecting that to be much different from the comparable field I looked at yesterday, but I always live in hope .

I'd suggest pick a walk that takes in a few different habitats, which has options to vary the route when/if you hit a good spot ...

Melanie