Fungi and Butterflies on Corstorphine Hill

 Autumn is the time of year most connected to fungi (though not all fungi appear only in Autumn) and in Edinburgh, Corstorphine Hill is one of the best places to see fungi. So that's where Crafty Green Boyfriend and I walked yesterday. It's a lovely hill to walk round, with lovely open areas and woodland. The tree in the centre of the photo below is a Rowan (also known as a Mountain Ash).

The hill also gives some magnificent views of Edinburgh. The photo below shows Calton Hill and Arthur's Seat in the distance, beyond the golf course 

There were already good displays of fungi, including this Giant Polypore growing where it always does 

and these puff balls  

and these fungi, which I can't recognise at all, they look like the young stage of something, perhaps earth stars? 

A good number of Speckled Wood Butterflies were flying around and basking in the early Autumn sunshine 

 Looking up into the canopy, many of the trees still look pretty green

 

Even some of the ash trees still look green (the tree in the centre of the photo below is an ash)

Sadly, most of our ash trees are infected with ash die back disease. Both the ash trees in the photo below are probably infected, but the tree on the left is obviously much more badly affected. 

This is the time of year when Oak trees tend to get infected with galls (these are generally not damaging to the tree's overall health, though they probably do weaken the trees to some extent). Here are some Spangle galls, made by the Spangle Gall Wasp.

And hereis a gall on a hazel Tree, we weren't able to identify these! 

 

For Nature Notes.