Waxing Lyrical About Waxcaps

The last couple of months have been very fungi-centric. I've spent a lot of time photographing fungi and also slime moulds in some of my local woods. However, It's the waxcaps of Middlewick Ranges that have demanded the most attention.

Earlier in the year, when the Ministry of Defence acted with impunity and decimated the skylark numbers by illegally cutting the meadows during their breeding season, little did they realise that they were inadvertently shooting themselves in the foot for later in the year. Although the damage they did to this red-listed, protected species, by cutting the grass during this time, was utterly abhorrent and yet another example of how the MOD are systematically removing as much wildlife from the site as possible to make things easier for them when they sell the land to developers. There was a slight silver lining to that very dark cloud. Come autumn, the shorter grass revealed an incredible waxcap mushroom display, the likes of which I'd never seen there before, or anywhere for that matter.

They almost certainly would have been there in large quantities in the past but went unnoticed in the longer grass. This year you could barely walk a few paces on the meadows without encountering large clumps of waxcaps.

So significant was this waxcap emergence that it warranted a survey, not just by the ecologists/naturalists from the ‘Save Middlewick Ranges’ campaign group but by fungi experts as well.

This incredible map from ecologist Martin Pugh is not only a feast for the eyes, showing the incredible abundance of waxcaps initially surveyed but also highlights something else important.

The Stantec survey from 2020 looked very different to the PBA one from 2017. Over 20 hectares of acidic grassland were downgraded to ‘poor semi-improved’, mainly focussed around the area where the proposed footprint for the development would be placed. It was important, for them, that this part of the survey was fabricated, as reporting the true extent of this extremely rare and valuable acidic grassland would have resulted in its viability for development being ruled out at the very start.

Although the evidence of this incorrect classification is everywhere, it doesn’t hurt to have more and my word is the waxcap evidence conclusive and undeniable. Waxcaps and the other types of fungi present here, require very specific conditions in which to grow. They certainly wouldn’t grow in ‘poor semi-improved’ soil. The ground also needs to be untouched/unturned for a number of years before waxcaps start appearing, some species requiring many more years than others. Yet another reason why attempting to recreate the acidic grassland elsewhere, in order to mitigate the damage done after development, is completely unviable. There are certain species of waxcap on the Wick which ONLY grow in acidic soil so that’s a tricky one to argue with when they are found in areas that the Stantec survey claimed to be ‘poor semi-improved.

Emma Williams, an expert mycologist at Coal Spoil Fungi was kind enough to make some time for Middlewick. Despite her busy schedule she travelled down from Wales and allocated two solid days to survey the meadows, as well as giving a fantastic talk at Leaf (the location of the Middlewick exhibition) She was also generous enough to share some of her searching methods with a group of us as well as her findings after spending time on the site. The insight her knowledge gave her meant that she was able to piece together the kind of complete picture of Middlewick in a way that I wouldn’t have thought was possible in the limited time she was there.

One issue that was brought to the surface during the surveying was just how much of a problem the Wick has with dog mess and the number of selfish dog owners that don’t pick up after their dogs. Over 100 of Emma’s survey patches failed because of the presence of dog mess. As well as the obvious health implications and general unpleasantness of having dog mess everywhere, it’s particularly bad news for acidic grassland as it adds nutrients into soil that is characterised by its poor nutrient content. There were certain species of fungi that Emma would have expected to see which weren’t present and the reason for that could well have been the amount of contaminants in the soil from the dog mess. Particularly the harmful chemicals found in flea treatments/insecticides. This has the side effect of also being harmful to the wildlife and means that the dog mess will remain there longer as the invertebrates that would normally help break it down won’t touch it. A big problem but one I dare say isn't very high up on the MOD’s list.

Thanks to Emma's CHEGD+ survey, the preliminary results show that, alongside 9 IUCN red-listed species, Middlewick has AT LEAST 21 species of waxcap. This means that it would qualify for SSSI status, as the threshold to qualify is 19 species. This number is likely to increase once microscope work has been completed on the samples that were taken. Some waxcap species are impossible to identify in the field without microscopy work so 21 species, as of now, is a conservative total.

This is the 5th area in which Middlewick satisfies SSSI criteria, adding fungi to the list with nightingales, barbastelle bats, invertebrates and acid grassland. It begs the question, why is this site still in the local plan and at risk of being destroyed for development? Natural England needs to step up and respond, as they can easily put an end to this nonsense. That needs to happen sooner rather than later, as time is something that Middlewick no longer has.

Buglife, Butterfly Conservation, Colchester Natural History Society, CPRE Essex, Essex Field Club, Essex Wildlife Trust, The Friends Of Middlewick and RSPB have all teamed up for a Crowd Justice page to raise funds for Middlewick to help cover some of the expensive legal costs, moving forward, in order to continue fighting for the Wick and to safeguard its future. If you would like to support that fight, the page can be found here. Any donations, small or large, will help the campaign greatly.