Biodiversity volunteering - we found Parrot Waxcaps!

Over the last month we've held two biodiversity monitoring volunteering sessions in Fallowfield and Levenshulme, as part of our Awards for All programme. The point of these sessions was to help build up a stronger picture of the health of fungal biodiversity in the local area. To do this we try and make good biological records. A biological record is, at it's most basic level, a way of letting other people what you saw, when and where. However, a good biological record requires careful observation. So these sessions were not so much about learning how to identify fungi, but about learning and practicing observation. Observation is what allows us to make records that have a useful amount of detail.

A huge thank you to everyone who came to the two sessions. It's not always easy to get started with biological recording but everyone was incredibly passionate and persistent!

Parrot Waxcaps in all their slimy glory!

Seeing the Parrot Waxcaps (Gliophorus psittacinaus) was probably the most significant highlight for me. We found them in the east end of Platt Fields park, near the Shakespeare Garden. What's really exciting is that waxcaps are a good bioindicator of unfertilised 'unimproved' grassland, which sounds like a bad thing, but is absolutely a good thing when it comes to long-term biodiversity. We're still waiting to check this with the local records centre to confirm this, but yesterday's observations are the only time that species has been recorded at Platt Fields on iNaturalist. Which is a great bit of news. 

The iNaturalist record is available here - https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/248879512 Maybe you might want to check if it comes back next year!

What's interesting is that we observed Snowy Waxcap (Cuphophyllus virgineus) at Platt Fields couple of years ago - https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/102872383. Our understanding is that Cuphophyllus is the first waxcap to 'come back' on soils that are recovering. So, while this is really only two datapoints, it suggests that there is a process of regeneration taking place at Platt Fields. It would be useful to keep getting more data as the years go on!

Another gem was this White Saddle (Helvella crispa), found at Highfield Country Park.

I want to give a special commendation to the volunteers at Highfield Country Park. When we started out, we weren't hugely optimistic about seeing lots of fungi. The week had been very dry, and we had just began poking our nose into November, which is considered late in the season. This group went over about 100 metres of the Country Park with a fine tooth comb, turning over every twig and leaf. They also found some gorgeous blue Postia, Mycena and Crepidotus.

It goes to show that biodiversity monitoring is just as important when things don't appear abundant. And even if we hadn't found much, that in itself would be useful information! So much of the problem we have with fungal biodiversity is the unknown unknowns - not knowing what we're missing. And we need to know how fungi biodiversity is responding to habitat loss and climate change if we're going to do anything about it. The more good biological records we can make, the clearer the picture will be.