At the end of June I am giving a talk on the wildlife of lawns at a seminar for the Wildlife Gardening Forum project to be held at the Natural History Museum in London. As a bit of an angle for this I have set up a small rectangle of lawn in our garden for close study between now and the date of the talk and its progress can be followed here:
Since September 2003 the author has been making a minimum intervention study of a square metre of land and the immediate surrounding area in his garden in the East Sussex Weald at Sedlescombe near Hastings, UK. By April 2016 over 1000 species of plants and animals (none of which has been deliberately introduced) had been recorded and the area featured on many TV and radio shows including Spring Watch, and The One Show.
Friday, April 06, 2012
Rabbit dung fungi
Among other things a few rabbit pellets from the Square Metre produced some microfungi like orange blancmanges with slender spikes protruding: pale golden sea urchins.
My mycological friend Howard Matcham has identified these as Lasiobolus ciliatus, a common species but a new record for Emthree. He says to keep the dung for longer as other species are likely to appear.