Osprey at Roudsea

Arum maculatum, Cuckoo pint in Roudsea Wood

 The sway of Roudsea Wood gradually took hold.  After rain, there was a freshness of almost autumn on the air.  And a hint of the sea as the River Leven debouches into Greenodd Sands and out into Morecambe Bay.
 Glossy scarlet berries of glowed from the woodland floor. Arumn maculatum, Cuckoo pint, Lords and Ladies- some plants have a profusion of names. Others, like tiny fungi rising on slender deep-red  stipes from the leaf litter, are more elusive. Their abundance hints at their mycelium, a spreading network of threads hidden in the earth.  A connectivity of trees and fungi.

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The fragrance, the soundscape of Roudsea Wood took hold slowly. A gull flew raucous above the wood. The wind played through the woodland canopy and the tall trees flexed and swayed. Those tiny white-capped fungi flourished in the dampness of the leaf-litter of the woodland floor, amongst dark oak leaves and green leaves of wood sorrel and of mosses. A bilberry wood, although fruit were hard to find.

Leaving Roudsea Wood, we headed for the raised mire. Leafy green bog myrtle shrubs grew amongst heather and cross-leaved heath.  A network of paths criss-crosses Roudsea and I remembered swathes of bog asphodel, but somehow we missed it.  The osprey observation point proved rewarding. Low light was advantageous.  An adult osprey with four young, now fledged,  sat in the Scots pine. Someone had a telescope and was generous in offering us views.  Colour and definition on the birds was excellent, until the sun came out and a heat-haze instantly shimmered images in the scope. Now that the birds are fledged and out of the nest they're  easier to see. And their habit of choosing a perch in a dead tree also helps.
The contrast between an organised osprey watch and finding discrete fungi that probably no one else has noticed!