Fungi photos from a visit to Walker Wood and photos from a trip to Ben Rhydding Gravel Pits Local Nature Reserve. You can see more posts from visits to BRGPLNR and Walker Wood.
The header image is of a small flock of Curlew on the ground opposite the Moss & Moore Garden Centre, Ben Rhydding.
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Walker Wood
On Sunday 22 Feb 2026 I had a walker through Walker Wood with my camera and macro lens to see what was happening in the fungi world.
By far the most common type of fungi were the small brackets of Turkeytail, Trametes versicolor and False Turkeytail, AKA Hairy Curtain Crust, Stereum hirsutum. Quite a few logs and branches were covered in dense mats of the fungus. Turkeytail has pores on the underside whereas Hairy Curtain Crust, that can look very similar on the top, has a smooth surface where pores are not evident.
I spotted another tree with some of its bark peeled back showing the Rhizomorphs of an Armillaria fungus – Honey Fungus – that will be killing the tree. Many fungi are beneficial to plants/trees where they they provide nutrients to the trees and the trees provide carbon/energy in return. The fungi are essential in breaking down the mountains of organic matter, as are Woodlice, but some fungi, like the Armillaria sp., actually damage and kill trees. Dutch Elm Disease is also as a result of a fungus, Ophiostoma novo-ulmi, that is spread by bark beetles. This is affecting many of the Elm trees at Ben Rhydding Gravel Pits Local Nature Reserve.
Quite a few small branches had clusters of Jelly Ear Fungus, Auricularia auricula-judae, growing on them.
A nice one to spot was a single Scarlet or Ruby Elfcup. I tried to get a photo of the hairs on the underside of the cup so that I could find out if it was the Scarlet or Ruby variety – Sarcoscypha austriaca or Sarcoscypha coccinea. Though I was erring on the side of saying that the hairs were straight(ish) I am told that a decent microscope is really needed.
An interesting find was a golf ball in the middle of the woods. I wonder how it got there.
In the woods are several faint paths that go under low branches, too low for people to walk under so there are a few anumals that move about in the woods. The soft ground had many foot prints in it from wellies, and boots, and paws, and in several places evidence of the cloven hooves of deer. I kept my eyes and ears open and at one point saw Roe Deer. I reckon there were 3 of them but I had my macro lens on my camera. I was therefore lucky to get this photo of one of them.
On the way out of the woods, to civilisation, I spotted a Kestrel atop a post next to the Baildon Green houses. It flew off an hovereed over the grass on the other side of Saffron Desi restaurant (Cricketer’s Arms as was).
BRGPLNR
The first photo, of the moon was taken from our back garden when we had a very clear sky – Tuesday 24 Feb. at 18:27.
The other photos are from a visit to Ben Rhydding Gravel Pits Local Nature Reserve. Bracket fungi were in evidence there but the only fungi photo I took was of a tiny one growing on the side of a tree. I think it is a Velvet Shank, or at least one of the Flammulina sp.
The header image is of a quite well camouflaged flock of Curlew. They are in the field opposite the Moss & Moore Garden Centre.
The two Oystercatcher were on the edge of the water in the field to the West of the water treatment works.
Tracks
The squiggles show where I wandered taking the photos. You can move around the maps by dragging, you can also zoom in or out, or make the map full screen.
Walker Wood
Ben Rhydding Gravel Pits
This shows a bit of wandering about but the photos were taken either quite close to the entrance or across the road.
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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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