Young country diary: A fungi fest and a dip in the loch

Woodhall loch, Galloway: Seeing fieldcap, sickener and crab brittlegill in the woods prepares me for the cold of the waterAt first I didn't know where to look, as I was interested in every sight and sound around me. My focus was soon snagged on the mushrooms. They littered the woodland path, all shapes and sizes. The small, red sickener; the thin, yellow, gooey fieldcap; a large, green, puffy bolete; white bracket fungus and a broad, dark red crab brittlegill.As I passed the gushing Kennick burn, I saw moss-covered spruce and damp tree stumps coated in wood sorrel. Its lemony taste filled my mouth as the wooded path emerged on to an open loch. My thoughts of fungi were washed away as I looked over the perfectly still expanse of water. Overhanging willow branches were mirrored in the loch's surface, and a jumping brown trout was creating little ripples. Continue reading...