David Humphries

Great images Nailer. Looked like a smooth operation .

Was there a convenient 'wood'pecker hole perchance, to place ones shadow Johnson in ? .

No this is not one of the coral type fungi, it's probably a slime mold species of the Stemonitis genus. .

Cool .

Probably cause I had no hand in it .

That's because you live in the sticks and only see scabby mallards, these are your Hampstead Ducks, an altogether different class of bird .

The gallery of pain...... .

Been a while, so we're having a small Renaissance at work with coronets and fractures as older members of the team have moved on and new members have joined, so we're retuning on some of the style and interpretations around some of the more avant-garde conservation arboricultural techniques. A roadside ash that has succumbed to root dysfunction so has been monolithed and had a coronet frenzy inflicted upon it. This was carried out over two sessions in between other works, so Team Leader Ali went back the next day and tamed the beast with a final onslaught with the 660, 440 and finished the more intricate detail with a topper. To add insult to injury the poor maligned ex tree got the hairdryer treatment ! .

Colonisation of both brown and a white rot decay species in this beech. Rigidoporus ulmarius and Ganoderma australe .

Oak fuse .

Tree ducks .

Would be interesting to get an update on the trees from the first post in this thread, JimM? In the meantime, this oak has been the subject of a fine new mulching technique from the wall builders .

Colonisation of two white rot fungi on the compression side of this sizeable London plane Ganoderma resinaceum Perenniporia fraxinea The Resistograph shows that the buttresses either side of the fruit body's are sound but the heart is dysfunctional. .

We sat and watched the video earlier this morning with the team and were suitably impressed in the set up, the rigging and the editing. Nice work all round. .

This looks to be the key bit of the Wild Life & Countryside Act 1981 regarding what constitutes a bird in the act of nesting "intentionally take, damage or destroy the nest of any wild bird whilst it is in use or being built" .

Hello Josh, Difficult to be sure without seeing an image of the fruiting body in its prime but from your description it sounds and looks like the desiccating state of Tremella foliacea, the leafy brain fungus California Fungi: Tremella foliacea But it may be worth considering other gelatinous species. .

Not protected under the W&C Act 1981 from how I understand it but a number of bee species are given a priority species listing in the 2006 NERC Act which is more about preserving and conserving habitats. .

Only talking about it on a open public forum You're fine, you didn't 'know' they were there. .

Moody looking place, nice update Rob .

This isn't always actually true, couple of weeks back we had a weeping willow starting to delaminate via a developing crack at the base of the stem. Overnight the crack opened alarmingly so we had to do something as it would of collapsed in what is a very public and well used open space. The tree is heavily colonised by the brown rot of chicken of the woods, (Laetiporus sulphureus) and has a number of significant cavities on a couple of the stems. During our apprentice's ascent into the tree he noted a pigeon nest with two young squabs in one cavity and a couple of meters further up a mallard sitting on 5 eggs in the next cavity. Mindful of the Wildlife & Countryside Act we would normally just leave them be and return to carry out any work when the chicks had fledged but due to the imminent nature of the hazard we had to act to stabilise the tree. We decided to remove the canopy to arrest the dynamic split. In doing so it meant that we would inevitably be disturbing the nesting birds and potentially be at odds with the legislation. There is however the exemption that states; "it is not illegal to destroy a nest, egg or bird if it can be shown* that the act was the incidental result of a lawful operation which could not reasonably have been avoided" The reduction to stabilise a dangerous tree like this for safety takes our actions into the realms of it being a lawful operation. For the record both mummy pigeon and mummy duck returned to their chicks and eggs after the work. We intend to monitor the progress of the chicks and will return to further reduce/pollard/remove the tree once they are no longer in the there, unless of course the tree becomes more unstable in the meantime which gives us the right to remove the hazard with the nests in it, as this would still be a legal exemption. .

Barn owl over the field at the back of the house Green woodpecker at work Marsh harriers at play over the Norfolk coast .

Rhizomorphs of unknown Armillaria species under the bark of this dead standing London plane .

Spheroblast ears .

Liking the work Steve. Private or public tree? What's going on in the second last shot? .

Thinking this is Glischrochilus hortensis, the four spotted sap beetle Here on the slime flux exuding from this cut stump .