Waxcap Hunt

    I've lived here in the fens for nearly 20 years now and last weekend was the first time I had made a visit to our local iron age fort/camp.

   The area covers a good 10 to 20 acres and is all grassland used as pasture for sheep, so an ideal area to search for waxcaps. The waxcap family love grassland which hasn't been treated by fertiliser, they also love sheep pasture as sheep keep the grasses low allowing the waxcap fungi to spread their spore easier than in long grass.

   I wasn't sure if I would find any but everything pointed to it being the perfect area and so when I entered the gates it was with excitement and hope. I needn't have worried for after only a few minutes I was spotting Snowy Waxcaps and good size ones at that. I was soon seeing Meadow Waxcaps too plus the odd puffball here and there. After around an hour I found an area of nice short mossy grass which was home to a good number of Blackening Waxcaps, the first I'd ever found.


   I was so pleased, these amazing little fungi were in all their stages, the nice bright orange youngsters, then some mature examples that were turning dark and finally some pure black examples,


   I stayed for another hour just looking in odd areas to get an idea for how big the place was. Finally before heading for the carpark I found a small group of nice yellow Butter Waxcaps, so in all on this first look around I had found four different members of the waxcap family, it was a great start and I had already decided to spend longer searching in a couple of days time.



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