Yellow Stagshorn

A day of two halves. I spent a fruitless two hours this morning searching for Cauliflower Fungus across part of the common where we have conifer trees. The last survey on this part, five years ago, found an example of caulifower fungus but there is no photographic record. However, on the walk back I came across this little group of Yellow Stagshorn, a fungi I hadn't found on the common before.

The afetrnoon survey of Brown Hairstreak butterfly eggs proved to be a great success. The Brown Hairstreak is one of the most elusive butterflies, spending most of its time at the top of tall trees, particularly Ash and so is seldom seen. However, it lays its eggs on new blackthorn so one of the best ways of detecting its presence is to search for the eggs. Sixteen volunteers turned up and we walked various field boundaries finding the tiny (pin-head size) round white eggs in seven different locations. This pushes the known distribution of Brown Hairstreak a little bit further east than previously recorded. Vey satisfying.