Grub's up

A pair of Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoos were around today checking the trees and shrubs to see if they could locate a meal.
I could hear wood being ripped and found one of the pair busy tearing a wattle apart.

After a bit more excavation it found its favourite meal, a nice juicy grub, most probably a caterpillar of one of the Cossid moth species.

The wattle that was ripped apart is the Sydney Wattle Acacia longifolia that come up all across our property and are a bit of a weed, so not worried about the damage as I will be taking the tree out. We have lots of these and other trees that the caterpillars favour so there is no shortage of potential food sources for the Cockatoos.

The exposed tunnel of the caterpillar

 

Even more fungi

The east coast low has moved away and we had a day without rain. With all that we have had of late the fungi just keeps on popping up which gave me a chance to get a few more images and also to be able to get some identities confirmed.

The one that I have been watching now since it formed as a ball, had fully developed and  been knocked over, probably by a wallaby. This enabled me to get a good look at the gills and more of the colour development and identifyy it as Cortinarius areolatoimbricatus.

I also took another photo of another one that had developed nearby and showed the deeper colour through the cracks in the cap.

On the other hand I found others more difficult identify and I will just keep working on them or perhaps someone might let me know.
This one is quite a good size and has white gills and a slightly slimy top on the cap.

This little colourful specimen managed to push up through the edge of the track and had a few pieces of gravel stuck to the cap.

This troop burst from a fallen log of ironbark whereas the one below came out of the grass with dirt and grass attached.

I did find some more that I was able to identify and the most striking and unmistakable was a pair of bright violet subjects species  Cortinarius aff. violaceus.

Another colourful subject was the red topped one Russula persanguinea. 

This one required a check of the underside of the cap to give me an opportunity to identify and the porous structure rather than gills indicated one of the Boletus Species and it seems to be granulatus edible and described is mild pleasant flavour.

Quite a few of these little ones were in a shady damp area and I think they are Galerina patagonica but not certain.

This little puff ball I think is Lycoperdon pyriforme and there are many of these scattered across the grassed area. I found a few that were fully ripe and gave a nudge with a stick to release the spore and they can be seen as a wispy yellow cloud it the top right hand corner of the next photo.

Another puff ball that had split open gave me the identity of a fungus that I had photographed a few days ago (a yellow mound with cracking all over), and it is one of the Scleroderma species and there appears to be some confusion of the species when I have checked on the web so either citrinum or cepa. The wall has split open exposing the spore ready to be dispersed by wind or rain.

Another group are very different form the typical mushroom and that is the "coral" genus Ramaria and I found a few different looking examples but I don't know if they are different species possibly sinopiclor or subaurantiaca.