Proper dung

As an escape from the horrors of the news and the tyranny of report writing, I spent a couple of hours at Old Sulehay, one of my favourite nature reserves. 

Spring is creeping in rather slowly here in the east, considering that it's been an exceptionally mild winter. In the quarry the first few Hairy Violets were in bloom, while the floor of the ancient woodland is verdant with the leaves of Bluebell and Ramsons, here and there studded with creamy bowls of Primrose flowers. 

Sweet Violet and Early Dog-violet were also in flower, and I found unfurling flower-stalks of the ghostly Toothwort, a parasitic plant of Hazel and other broad-leaved trees. But there was no sign of any Wood Anemones - only a few leaves shyly emerging through the oak leaf litter.

In winter the quarry is grazed by Highland Cattle and their fibrous dung, free from pesticides provides a home for many invertebrates and fungi. I kicked some open and it was riddled with holes made by the larvae of dung beetles. The surface was quite dry, but I spotted the rather over-mature fruiting bodies of a fungus that I'd not seen before, with dark discs and pale frilly edges. I think it may be either Ascobolus crenulatus or A furfuraceus but as I didn't gather a specimen I will never be sure...