On balls and holes

In Lings, I discovered a fair few of both.

Balls.

Essentially, fungi. The ball in my hand would have developed into a stinkhorn. Yup, the fungus that looks like a bollock turns into a fungus that looks like a penis. the other one is very very hard. It feels like wood.

There is another fungus that grows on birch - the Birch Polypore. This was one of the fungi carried by the ancient human whose body was dug out of the ice in the Alps. It has a lot of medicinal properties - anti-bacterial, anti-viral, anti-inflammatory and immune-boosting.

Holes.

The first one is in a sycamore - yet the tree still seems pretty happy.

There are some gorgeous old beeches at Lings. this one must have a girth approaching three metres.

Mainly, I was litter picking.

It was deeply saddening to see how much litter was thrown next to paths or any place where a person could conceivably sit. Crisp and chocolate wrappers, plastic and glass bottles, tin cans, plastic food containers. A toothbrush. A child's coat.

To think that this can seem OK. Or not even be considered.

I am a strange person because to me it feels like sacrilege.

There was a horrible old pond of bleak black water and weed in which you could see a pram and plastic bags, plastic bottles and other litter. A pair of ducks swam around, dipping their heads in the filth. Seemingly perfectly happy. A wren scuttled about on the far bank, checking for insects on the slimy shore. So light was the wren that even the algal film seemed to support her weight. In part, I felt profoundly depressed and angry. Then I wondered... maybe they - ducks and wren - don't care.

I left them.

The Merlin app recorded a wide variety of birds, including treecreepers.

We saw a kite return to her nest, pursued by corvids. A robin sang at me.

I scraped at the ground with my book like a very inefficient boar to thank the robin for his song. Maybe he found some insects there.

I watched a bee vibrate to warm up her flying muscles before leaving me to my litter-picking.

Apologies for filming her the wrong way up....