Identifying Woodland Fungi
October is an ideal time to take a slow wander through the woods looking down rather than up in order to spot the fruiting bodies of fungi (toadstools and mushrooms) poking up through the leaves and grass.
Last year’s fungi walk revealed that Fox Hill contains many different fungi and these last few weeks they have started to make their presence obvious as they shoot up out of the ground or rotting stumps.
Whilst freshly sprouted specimens can look like the images in a fungi guide, once ravaged by slugs and snails or knocked about, getting a solid identification can be tricky.
Here are some tips to help with identification:
- Note where the fungi is growing – is it from the ground, on dead or rotting wood or sprouting from an apparently healthy tree?
- If it is on wood try to identify the type of tree as well – some fungi only grow on specific species.
- Get down and take a Selfie!
- Take photos from the side low to the ground as well as from the top to get as much detail as possible of size and overall shape.
- Use your phone camera in selfie-mode to take a picture under the cap.
For fungi on stalks the colour and shape of the gills and if there is a skirt (where the gills were attached to the stem as it came up through the ground) are important identifiers.
- If the fungi is already on the ground see if the flesh has bruised a different colour – another important differentiator between similar-looking species.
None of the common fungi found in Fox Hill are edible and some are very poisonous.
Look but do not touch is the safest policy!
Here are some of the fungi you might see around the woods over the coming weeks.
Brown Roll-Brim
(Paxillus involutus)
Found on the woodland floor in amongst the leaf litter.
A Deadly poisonous but very common UK fungus, it’s main habitat is broadleaved woodlands, especially those with birch trees like Fox Hill, but it is also found in parks and gardens
Sulphur Tuft
(Hypholoma fasciculare)
Often seen growing in clumps from rotting tree stumps.
It plays a significant role in the woodland ecosystem by decomposing lignin and cellulose in dead wood and recycling the nutrients back into the soil.
Common Earthball
(Scleroderma citrinum)
Bright yellow globes in amongst the leaf litter in the clearings.
Not to be confused with Puffballs which are paler.
Host to the rare parasitic bolete fungus that grows nowhere else.
Turkeytail
(Trametes versicolor)
A bracket fungus often growing in tiered layers from dead standing wood.
The colours of the stripes may vary.
Has been used in the past to decorate hats!
Birch Polypore / Razorstrop Fungus
(Piptoporus betulinus)
A long-lived bracket fungus of birch trees only.
Once used to sharpen tools & razor blades.
Oetzi, the Iceman found frozen in an Alpine glacier had some of this fungus with him probabaly due to its antibacterial properties.
Emerald/Turquoise Elf Cup
(Chlorociboria aeruginascens)
The tiny cups appear on rotting wood – this fungi is most easily spotted by the way the mycelium stains the wood greeny-blue.
The green pigment called is called xylindein coined the term “green oak”. This stained wood was highly valued by 18th and 19th-century woodworkers for its use in decorative inlays such as Tonbridgeware.
2025 Butterfly Count
The timing of the Big Butterfly Count didn’t coincide with bramble blossoms that are normally found along the edges and clearings of Fox Hill Woods this time. You may have noticed an early crop of yummy blackberries this year, or maybe you saw small shriveled berries. This is because “Spring 2025 was exceptional, going down as the UK’s warmest and sunniest on record” – Met office. Plants and animals emerged either early or out of sync with the eco system on which they depend.
As a Fox Hill newsletter subscriber, you’re likely already attuned to the rhythms of nature and have noticed the subtle shifts in your garden and surroundings. So rather than going into a climate crisis discussion, I’ll simply acknowledge the changes we’re witnessing together. I found that the small and large whites were in abundance in my garden, while a few others made less appearances. This lines up with the national observations recorded on the Big Butterfly Count Map. While we have no pictures from Fox Hill, here is a selection of Lepidoptera from my garden as compensation:
So, what can we do?
Here are a few ideas:
- Find more about what’s going on locally with sustainability and how you can get involved at the Wokingham People Planet Pint meetup. Pop down to The Rose on the first Thursday of each month at 6pm to meet like-minded locals.
- I often hear people wonder why they should make an effort when it seems like others don’t. But that’s when it matters most. The smallest actions can lead to meaningful change. Never underestimate the ripple effect of sharing the positive choices you’ve made for nature.
- As they say, knowledge is power. The study of seasonal changes in plants and animals from year to year is called Phenology. The Woodland Trust is collecting data for its Phenology studies through Citizen Science and by adding a record to their database.
Thank you for everything you do,
Claire
Signs of Success
With fantastic support from local residents, Friends of Fox Hill put in applications to have four well-loved paths in Fox Hill officially recognised as Public Rights of Way.
We’ve sent the Council our maps and evidence forms showing that these routes have been enjoyed by the community for over twenty years without interruption. The landowners have also been notified of our applications. On the map below, you can see the routes we’ve applied for, marked in purple:
These things can take time — in fact, our last application took five whole years before the popular route marked in red was officially recognised as a Public Right of Way. We’re hugely grateful to the Ramblers Association who, working with the local council, kindly provided and put up the smart new signposts to mark the way in June.
A Batty Way to Spend an Evening?
After a rather wet day we were delighted that Saturday evening was calm and dry so that our walk with Harriet Baber from the South Bucks & Berks Bat Group could go ahead. Fifteen friends joined us to explore Fox Hill woods after dusk looking for signs of bats.
Harriet explained why bats are so special – for example, they are one of only 4 genera of animals that have independently evolved the power of flight (the others being insects, pterosaurs and birds). Bats are also incredibly long-lived for their size – although about the same size as a mouse which might live 1-2 years, a bat can live for 20 years or more! Through a quirk of evolution bats don’t age in the same way that other mammals do, having an ability to repair their DNA and to avoid the shortening of their chromosomes that normally result in tumours and other age-related illnesses.
An example of a rare Nathusius’ Pipistrelle
It is well known that bats use echolocation to detect their prey and find their way around. However the sounds that they make are beyond most people’s hearing range, so Harriet had brought along some bat detectors which reduce their high frequency squeaks down to a level that we can hear.
On our route through the woods we stopped a couple of times and listened with our bat detectors pointed hopefully into the trees and up into the sky. After a short while we were rewarded with several bats flitting around. Based on the frequency set on our detectors (35-45Hz) these were most likely pipistrelle bats (although which of the 3 UK species we could not be sure). They seemed to be emerging from local roosts to feed in the larger clearings and in breaks in the canopy near the bike jumps. After circling round a couple times they would then drop back into the trees to rest. With the detectors we could also hear the clicks speed up into a raspberry-like noise as the bat homed in on its insect prey.
A Noctule bat was detected when we pointed our detectors at the tree line along the pylon line.
As the light began to fade we ended up on the pylon line, mostly tracking pipistrelles in and out of the trees but Harriet also spotted a solitary noctule which is one of our larger native species. Bats can travel at around 12 mph and so are capable of travelling some distance in the course of an evening. Despite their use of echolocation for feeding they do have quite good eyesight, using visual clues such as hedges, roads, railways and, yes, pylon lines for navigation between areas. Our pylon line may well be a “bat corridor” between different roosting sites.
Everyone enjoyed their evening walk in the woods and learning more about these mysterious little creatures. We are extremely grateful to Harriet for providing her time and expertise and hope that it will encourage you to take a moment to watch out for bats in and around the woods on a summer evening.
Stag Beetles
The People’s Trust for Endangered Species is coordinating an annual Stag Beetle Count with other organisations across Europe. The survey takes place between 1st June and 31st July. For more information go to https://stagbeetles.ptes.org/stag-beetle-count/. You might also enjoy a Stag Beetle talk on June 16th in South Hill near Bracknell, see details here.
Stag beetles are the largest UK beetle and easily recognized by the male’s impressive antler-like jaws, which they use in dramatic wrestling matches to compete for the attention of females. While the females lack the prominent jaws, they are equally important, using their strong mandibles for burrowing into the soil to lay their eggs.
The larvae spend several years feeding on decaying wood beneath the forest floor. This crucial role in breaking down deadwood makes them vital decomposers within Fox Hill Woods’ ecosystem. Eventually, the larvae pupate, transforming into the adult beetles we hope to see during the summer months. The adult stage is brief, lasting only a few weeks, and is primarily dedicated to mating.
Fox Hill Woods, with its mix of mature trees and natural deadwood, provides a natural habitat for stag beetles. Adding to this are the “stag beetle hotels” constructed with help from the local Scout group, comprising a pit in the ground into which upright logs are buried. This design provides the ideal conditions for female stag beetles to lay their eggs at the base of the decaying wood. The submerged logs then offer a long-lasting food source for the developing larvae.
Please do let us know if you see a stag beetle on your walks around the Fox Hill Woods this summer!
By Popular Demand… Flapjacks!
At our conservation parties, a number of you have asked for the recipe of Steph’s yummy flapjacks. So, clean the oven and get down to Morrisons for ingredients, because here it is!
Fox Hill Working Party Flapjacks
Prep 20 mins, cooking 20-25 minutes
Double the quantities for a large working party
Ingredients
100g butter
75g golden syrup
75g soft brown sugar
225g rolled oats
A handful of raisins
50-60g chocolate
- Melt the butter, sugar and golden syrup over a low heat.
- Add the raisins.
- Stir in the oats really well.
- Spread into a greased 20.5-30.5cm baking tray or tin.
- Bake at 180 ° C for 20-25 minutes.
- Leave in the tin to cool then ease out onto a cooling rack.
- Cover with melted chocolate.
- Once set, cut into squares.
- Store in an airtight container.
Tree-mendous Scouts!
On Sunday 10th March there was a tree planting session in Fox Hill organised by 1st Woosehill Scouts, in conjunction with Friends of Fox Hill and Wokingham Borough Council Countryside Services team.
In the bright, warm spring sunshine, over 20 Scouts, siblings and parents turned out to plant over 100 saplings of under-storey trees provided by the Woodland Trust as part of their community planting programme.
The species planted were:
- Hazel
- Blackthorn
- Rowan
- Elder
- Crab Apple
- Dog Rose – these were placed along the dead-hedges to trail through the brash.
Each tree was given a guard to prevent deer and other animals from feeding on the tender shoots. As you walk around the woods you will easily be able to spot the trees the Scouts planted as they all have green wire mesh guards.
To further improve the soil and give the young trees the best start, a mycorrhizal dip was applied to the roots. Hopefully this will help re-establish the “wood-wide-web” which has been disrupted by the rhododendron.
Although it will be several years before birds will be feasting on the fruit of the Scouts’ trees, it will be interesting to compare the growth of these small saplings over the coming months against the other slightly larger ones that the Friends of Fox Hill have planted this winter.
In areas where rhododendron has been cleared, native plants find it difficult to get a foothold even after many years. Through targeted tree and bulb planting we hope to create a more diverse ecosystem in the woods.
2025 AGM Report
We had a lovely time at the AGM, and many thanks to those who joined us… especially the bakers!
Jürgen Adam did a wonderful presentation about the Woosehill Meadows & Emmbrook Regeneration Project, and has a request for your input. We would like to register the plants we see in the area, and hopefully see an increase as the project progresses over the years. We would be very grateful if you could join the Woosehill Meadows & Emmbrook Group on PlantNet to share your observations in the Woosehill (Wokingham/UK) area.
We hope you enjoy this video, reminiscing over the last 12 months with Friends of Fox Hill.
Thank you all for your support, and we look forward to seeing you again.
Friends o Fox Hill Comittee
“Mom, what’s the big basket for?”
If you’ve visited Fox Hill since our last conservation party, you’ll have seen some beautiful woodland sculptures dotted around. While they may be works of art, they actually serve a purpose…
After receiving permission from WBC, we started the coppicing described in this post, and the “basket weaving” forms a ring fence that we hope will keep deer away from the new shoots. The fresh shoots will look very tasty to them otherwise.
Thanks to some advice from our own experts and our friends from Holt Copse, we made a good start on the project.
The bottom left photo shows how we have used Layering to start off new Hazel plants. The branches will take root at the point they make contact with the ground.
Coppicing in Fox Hill
Coppicing is a traditional form of woodland management where thicker multi-stem trunks are cut back to encourage healthy regrowth. Once coppicing is done once, it should be repeated for the life of the plant.
Traditionally it was used for fencing or stakes. We will use the stakes for dead hedging (below), the brash for hedge filling, thinner straight branches for pegs and thicker trunks for footpath edging. Coppicing these trees will allow more light to penetrate into the area and encourage the growth of native plants such as bluebells.
All the trees in Fox Hill woodland are covered by a Tree Protection Order. WBC have granted us permission to remove rhododendron ponticum as this is an invasive species and part of the Fox Hill management plan. In addition, we have permission via planning application 242932 to coppice some hazel trees, which we will complete in early 2025. Any wood removed will be used in our conservation work.
