NORTH DOWNS & BEYOND

A few years ago I had but the one guide to the fungi of the UK. I knew very little about fungi, but this book was well laid out and even broke the species up into habitat, so that if my fungi was growing in broad-leaved woodland then all I had to do was turn to that particular section and match up my specimen. Simple. Er, no... The more I got 'into' them the more books I bought. With each subsequent purchase the more detailed was the publication. More detailed meant more species. More species meant that what I thought was a straightforward identification became anything but. It seemed to me that for every 'easy-to-do' mushroom there were, in fact, several look-a-likes. And these might need spore prints, chemical testing, sniffing and/or tasting to be absolutely sure. And then the taxonomists starting splitting. And splitting. And splitting. My original 250 species to be concerned about now numbers in the thousands. What did I learn? Well, the more I looked at the...

This little beauty found its way to me as a recent birthday present - Mushrooms by Peter Marren . The author is one of my favourite wildlife writers, as he possesses a deft touch with words which marries authority, accessibility and humour to the effect that his copy is an intelligent and entertaining read. What is even more exciting about this particular book is that it is the first of a series to be published by British Wildlife Publishing , the same people that have given us so many cracking field guides recently (particularly the micro moths guide back in the summer). This new series will hopefully be a more colourful (in more than one sense) version of the long established New Naturalists series. I've yet to read it, but flicking through it has already won me over. This book has made it onto my 2012 'Favourite Natural History Books' list. The others are: Moths of Great Britain and Ireland by Sean Clancy Do we need another moth book? Well, I find myself consta...