I spent 3 weeks in July on a terrific placement with Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) at Great Glen House, Inverness to learn how SNH works and where fungi fit in. I spent time with Dave Genney, the Policy & Advice Officer for Bryophytes, Fungi and Lichens and I worked on two main projects.
The first project was to help write the text for a fungi page on the new SNH website launching later this autumn. I attended an SNH web writing workshop to help me understand the content, nature and amount of text required and also how SNH wanted to communicate to their audience. Watch out for the fungi page on the new SNH website coming soon!
The second project was to visit a SSSI notified for fungi to report on any change, disturbance or damage since the last site condition monitoring in 2003.
One of the fungi species protected here is the Bleeding tooth fungus (Hydnellum peckii) which really is a beautiful sight. We found it here already fruiting on the site along with the remains of fruiting from last year, wonderful.
A pretty good sign that the site is still favourable – the same species in the same place 9 years on!
Sam Ranscombe – Mycology Apprentice
Photo by Dave Genney