Are you ready for a challenge?
5 May 2010 at 09:59 PM
Here is a set of pictures I have taken over a period of over eight days, from 26th April to 3rd May 2010. I found this strange thing on a dead alder close to the river bank, and full of old woodpecker holes.
The change from a soft papery covered mass to a woody lump, to a spongy spore case was astonishing. Does anyone have any idea what Image this is? Its papery, softish and with lumpy bits inside, about two inches across and no definite entrance hole. I suspect the woodlouse was just passing.
Over the eight days it got fuller and harder and eventually the surface was peeling to reveal a hard cocoa powder like mass. It became like an expensive home-made chocolate, the white cover was all gone.
(I happened to bump into Alan Willmot on the Reserve, and he identified it as a Slime mould.)
A Feast in our Reserve?
Written by Keith Dodd
19 Jan 2014 at 12:08 AM
A feast at Nutwood? OK, I know of a lot of things going off in our Reserve, but a feast? And yet - I found evidence of a feast - Bones and scales!
I came across these fish remains on a riverside path at Nutwood today (13/12/2013). They were north of the canoe club, where the wooden steps lead to the riverside. There were many large semi-translucent scales, each about 1 cm across, and several rib cage bones about 6cm long - shown in the first photos. A few feet away a groove in the undergrowth leads to the river and there were some scales there too. I can only think this was the work of an otter or a mink. I guess the fish must have been over a pound in weight. I could not find any spraints (another word for poo).
I showed some of the bones and scales to our gardener, who used to fish regularly. He agrees it was most likely a Chubb, and thought the scales quite typical, but estimated the size as 8-10 pounds. But then he's a fisherman!
I collected some bones and scales the following day; they are larger than I had estimated. The scales are 1.5 cm across, and the ribs 7 cm. I wonder whether otters/mink prefer to eat their catch in the water, or as a take-away. The bones were certainly stripped clean.
Liz and Steve (Lonsdale) also had a look around. They found a "rib bone" and a few scales, which Ian Wilbur thinks are probably from Chubb - approx. 4-5lb, so a good sized fish. "We couldn't find any evidence of Otter (or Mink), but absence of evidence is not evidence of absence! - and we would say that Otter or Human are the two most likely culprits!"
