Cedar Cup

When Pete was out for a walk yesterday he came across a good population of cedar cup fungi underneath on the of the large cedar of Lebanon trees on the boundary of Thorpe Hall. I'd never seen this before, so went out this morning to see if I could find them. I failed - so Pete had to come and show me where they were. They don't look very attractive, but are rare Britain, perhaps mainly because cedars are non-native trees and their distribution is very patchy. Most British sightings of this late winter and spring fruiting cup fungus are from southern England, notably Cambridgeshire and Kent.

The weather felt positively spring like, and several queen buff-tailed bumblebees were buzzing round the sweet violets, while the first two peacock butterflies battled over a nettle bed. We even saw an early bumble-bee in the garden when we arrived home.

I picked Chris up from the station after his week in Morocco with Wildlife Travel. Her really enjoyed being assistant leader, and seems to have had a really nice group of people. He also saw some amazing wildlife including scimitar-horned oryx, addax, northern bald ibis and red-necked ostrich, though after two years without rain the flora wasn't looking its best.