In January I did a lot of local walks, not venturing far from home. Since January, the same generally applies, although I have occasionally been a bit further afield. It’s partly laziness, I know, but also, when the forecast is for mixed weather, which it often has been, it makes sense to save time, and petrol, by walking locally, with the added advantage that I can scoot home if it really does turn unpleasant.
And then there’s just the fact that I enjoy walking in this area. There’s always something to see. Even on a short wander in Eaves Wood. Especially when you take a closer look. So, for example, I was examining this Jelly Fungus…
When I noticed the millipedes crawling on the surface of one of them.
To my untutored eye, these look like Nanogona polydesmoides, which is the Eyed Flat-backed Millipede, or the False Flat-backed Millipede, depending on which website you believe. The website of the British Myriapod and Isopod Group – millipedes are Myriapods, apparently – lists well over eighty species of millipede, but these seem quite distinctive, so it’s at least possible that my identification is correct. Millipedes are detritivores; creatures which feed on decaying organic matter. I think it’s fair to say that these Jelly Ear fungus were, at the very least, on the turn.
Jelly Ear fungus is allegedly edible; I tried it in a restaurant once and whenever I recall that meal I always remember the wise words of Michael J. ‘Crocodile’ Dundee: “Well, you know, you can live on it, but it tastes like shit”. I’ve seen the words ‘rubbery’ and ‘gelatinous’ used to describe the texture of these toadstools and neither of them seem like good companions to the word ‘appetising’.
The following day I started out in Eaves Wood again, in very gloomy conditions, and was somewhat surprised when I reached Bottom’s Lane to notice that lots of blue had appeared in the skies behind me…
I was pretty confident that I would find Stinking Hellebore about to flower near Silverdale Green, because they appear on the verge here every year…
Since they even beat the Snowdrops, in the flowering stakes, they always feel like the first proper sign of spring, and so I’m always disproportionately pleased to see them.
Buoyed up by the improving weather, I continued over Heald Brow and then down an exceptionally muddy, slippery path to the end of Quaker’s Stang, heading for Jenny Brown’s Point.
Beating The Bounds 