Shenstone Birder: Thursday 18th October 2012

Today I undertook another local walk looking at fungi and the destination was Habberley Valley nature reserve. Habberley valley is an interesting reserve that contains a mosaic of habitats in a relatively small area. These include lowland heath, grassland, woodland and sandstone cliffs.

On arrival at the carpark I was struck by the number of people here walking there dogs and thought twice about continuing but I did and I turned out to be a very productive walk.

I had a bit of a mooch around the first grassy area I came too left of the road between the carpark and the visitors centre and found small numbers of Scarlet Waxcaps.

It was the wooded slopes that were the most productive however as here I found a number of species including Cep, Common Earth Ball, Ochre Brittlegill and a rather yellow looking example of Velvet Shank (they are normally much brighter orange). Also of interest was the bright orange balls of a Slime Mold (Lycogala terrestre), which initially I thought to have been a fungi.

It's funny how though sometimes when you are out walking looking at certain natural subjects you tend to see other things. Today's highlights were two such things and the came in the form of invertebrates. The first was a ♂ Vapourer moth that flew past me and landed on the leaf litter. The other was a Cream-spotted Ladybird that was perched on some fungi. The latter being a new species for me.

All in all a really enjoyable mooch around a local reserve that I have overlooked in the past but will certainly return to in the future!

♂ Vapourer Moth