This article first appeared in the February 2026 edition of Birdwatching Magazine
I’m sure you will have heard of the old phrase used when something is blindingly obvious… it goes something like this: “Do bears sit in the woods?” Bears may not, but dogs certainly do! My fungi foray in late Autumn was ruined by the all too physical manifestation of this phenomenon.
In our currently mild winters, there are many rather late arrivals, after the purple patch of late-leaving and off-target migrants still hidden by leaves, we now have to wait for snow in the north to force down the geese, swans, raptors and winter passerines. There is a bit of a gap in the birding year, a bit like the July hiatus and the August confusion of juveniles.
Like many of you, I’m sure, these slower birding periods are filled with seasonal nature delights, which this magazine calls ‘Beyond Birdwatching’. Late Spring has orchids, summer is prime for butterflies and wildflowers, while the late Autumn is a time to find fungi.
Just like there are ‘waxwing winters’ and ‘poppy years’, so other bits of nature’s bounty can be weather dependent. Fungi like the wet. My expedition was preceded by three days of rain, but the woodland paths were still like concrete! Just like our half empty reservoirs, it takes more than a few days of drizzle to nudge the mycelium to fruit. What Shakespear called ‘midnight mushrumps’ appear through the damp leaf litter in all their glory.
I’ve always loved them and, in my youth, was confident enough to gather the edible varieties well before breakfast. ‘Horse’ mushrooms, as we called the really large Mushrooms Agaricus arvensis, (which, at the time, I had no idea was a different beast to the Field mushroom Agaricus campestris), abounded in the nearby field ditches. One would fill the entire buttered frying pan. Dad and I (mum and sis hated them) would share one mushroom augmented with smokey bacon, which my memory relishes despites forty years of vegetarianism!
So, Hawkeye and I had a wander in the hope of seeing something new to research. (I chatted to a ‘togger’ recently who told me he wouldn’t recognise a Yellow-browed Warbler if it landed on his hand. His enjoyment was in taking photographs. Then he would go home and look up all about the birds he had captured on film).
I wander about with my iPhone ready to capture fungi images – good exercise for this indolent itinerant, as I have to squidge down to see the underside of the fruit to have any chance of identifying what I see. Some are easy like the Fly Agaric that looks like it should have an elf sitting on its cap. I’ve got to grips with a few, but there are an awful lot of the fungi equivalent of LBJs. Little brown mushrooms abound and their nuances are hard for the novice. What’s worse is that even fungi in one species can look radically different. I’m never going to try eating any, I’m too scared of getting it wrong, so, like my bird list, my fungi list is for me, not in competition, so an error is no biggie.
Sticking to the paths we found a few… a big red Fly Agaric, clusters of Honey Fungus, Turkey Tails and Beefsteak clinging to trees. Few and far between, like the woodland birds that stayed out of earshot, but enough to give me my nature ‘fix’.
It wasn’t until I climbed back into the car that I discovered what else abounded along the paths. Irresponsible dog-owner engendered ordure! I’d favour using an old-fashioned remedy? Rub the dog-owners’ noses in it.
