These are mostly photos of fungi along Gill Beck, Baildon, on 15 Feb 2026. Have a look at the map at the end of the posting to see where I wandered.
The header image is of either Scarlet or Ruby Elfcup (Sarcoscypha austriaca or Sarcoscypha coccinea) which was one of the first things I spotted. Apparently I would need to look at the hairs on the underside to be able to confidently tell which they are. However the Scarlet Elfcup tends to be more common in the UK than Ruby Elfcup so the chances are that it is Scarlet Elfcup, Sarcoscypha austriaca.
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Fungi
Fungi:-
- Scarlet Elfcup
- Yellow Brain
- Jelly Ear
- Fungus? Galerina??
- Hairy Curtain Crust
- Turkeytail
- and its underside
- Beech Woodwart?
- Warlock’s Butter
- Beech Woodwart
- Jelly Ear
- Mycorrizal Fungi/Rhizomorphs???
- Crimped Gill & Trichoderma viride?
- More Crimped Gill
- and more
- Velvet Shanks (Flammulina sp)
Both photos of the Beech Woodwart show that it has nodules on it but the pale ones are new to me so I could very easily be wrong with my guess.
Dipper
One of the things I look and listen for along Gill Beck are Dippers. On this visit I watched one dipping under water to catch its food which tends to be the larvae of caddisflies, mayflies, and stoneflies.
The Rest
Last year Aire Rivers Trust organised a cleanup of the beck through Tong Park Industrial Estate helped by the estate owner. Unfortunately there are areas where it seems very easy for rubbish, that is piled up next to the banks, to fall into the beck. It would be much better if rubbish was placed against walls or proper enclosures rather than precariously on the banks.
I believe ceramic insulators can be collectors items but the ones I saw along the beck were broken.
Ladybirds often hibernate over winter. They often look for somewhere warm which is why we find them in houses. But I think all the rain and sodden ground has forced some of them to climb up out of danger.
And last – Snowdrops and Oakmoss.
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The images are published under the Creative Commons, BY-NC-SA license. Feel free to share them, edit them, but please keep my name in the credits. And if I have got the ID of anything wrong please let me know, I don’t consider myself an expert but I have write something. It is often a best guess and it would take up too much room to say It could be this, or it could be… or perhaps.
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