Marsh tit, nesting nuthatches and slime molds

On 24 April 2015, to nature reserves between Hilversum and ‘s-Graveland; where we saw this false puffball slime mold. Like the other photo in this blog post, this is a cell phone photo.

It was beautiful spring weather.

We arrived at Boekesteyn nature reserve.

A mallard.

A chaffinch sings. So does a blackcap.

A great tit.

A blackbird on a meadow.

A nuthatch.

A jay sitting on a branch.

A great spotted woodpecker.

A song thrush sings.

A white wagtail sits in a small tree, cleaning its feathers.

An Egyptian goose couple on a meadow.

Flowers as well: ground-ivy; lesser celandine; and cuckooflower.

A white stork standing on its nest on a treetop. Then, it sits down: only its head is still visible.

A goldfinch in a tree, then on the ground.

A brimstone butterfly.

In the woodland, a marsh tit, hanging upside down on a branch.

We pass what in the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, before the coming of refrigerators, used to be the ice cellar of Schaep en Burgh estate. There, ice cut from the ponds in winter kept food cold. Now, the building is used by wintering bats. In 2014, eight Daubenton’s bats and three whiskered bats were seen spending the winter there.

Then, a nuthatch on a tree near a canal. It goes to a hole in the tree, and feeds another nuthatch. Very probably, its breeding partner in the nest.

Then, we find an old oak tree. It has been cut down. There are false puffballs on it.

False puffballs look like fungi, but belong to the slime molds, a separate group. Especially in spring, they grow on oak and other trees. They attract slime mold flies, Epicypta testata.

As we go back, a great cormorant flies overhead.

This brainless slime mold can learn and remember despite having no brain or neural tissues: here.

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