Green Elf Cup

John C. writes:

Out for a walk today (6 August) in the Hailey, New Yatt, Ramsden area to look for bush crickets we made a rather pleasing find as we were passing through Holly Grove.

We didn’t expect to find crickets in Holly Grove, which is a rather tulgy wood – they like more open places – but there were already a lot of fungi, presumably because the summer has been so wet. The most spectacular were the Green Elf Cups we found on a dead tree trunk lying on the ground right next to the track. In the past we had found wood stained green by the fungus, but never previously seen the fruiting bodies and were quite chuffed to find them. They really were as green as they are in the picture; the hoverfly at the top of the picture shows the scale.

As for crickets, with the help of a bat detector we found plenty of them in sunnier places – mainly Roesel’s (both long- and short-winged forms) and Long-winged coneheads, some Speckled and heard, but didn’t see, a few Dark.

Altogether a satisfactory little ramble of a few miles at a speed of about 1 mph!

John Cobb and Sue Morton 6 August 2023