Pwll-du.

Once upon a time, long long ago, a Backward Birder went a' twitchin' up to Wales. He was trying to achieve the seemingly-impossible feat of seeing both flavours of Rock Thrushes in Britain in ten months...

He succeeded, as past posts show, but when the bird pulled a fast one, he didn't just hang about with the crowd, but wandered off on his tod to have a shufti at this interesting-looking place.


Pwll-du Quarries are carved into the next hill over from the Blorenge, being to the SW of Abergavenny and close to the famous Blaenavon [home of assorted WHS's and so on]. Said hill* has a tv station on top, and the line of quarries around the east and north sides.

Geographically, it is shaped like a near-breaking wave; sloping [fairly] gently to the SW and very steeply to the NE. Geologically, it is a lovely section of Carboniferous succession - a shallowing-up sequence of marine limestones, millstone grits, and coal measures**. Biologically, it is home to more species of fungi - mostly grassland species, especially waxcaps - than you would ever credit.



While the crowd mostly followed rumours, I had hours of fun ambling about taking vast numbers of pictures of bright fungi and grey rocks, before wandering back just as the bird had been refound***. Now, you get to see some of them. A tiny fraction, honest.

Firstly, as time has passed, here are a couple of scenery shots;

Looking back across the third quarry

Looking out across the first quarry

Summit cairn

It could be Dartmoor

The Fourth Quarry

Ok, enough quarries! 

The view from the access track

[with a couple of twitchy types for colour]

So, there's a mossy grassy moor-type bit on top, with a few small outcrops, and a steep grassy slope with quarries cut into it, looming over Aber.

We'll go with the pretty things first, so those of you less admiring of grey rocks can skip the rest if you want [aren't I kind?]. I am shamelessly and irresponsibly mixing environments here, but I'm hardly an expert; my ID's are largely 'closest I can get from the picture'...

I think this is actually a Meadow Waxcap

Possibly H. reidii

But might be the same as above?? 

Meadow Coral

[one I am sure of!]

Not certain with this one,

it could be a Dark-scaled Knight growing from buried wood
[by the track edge, and the track is supported by wooden edging]

Old Pink Waxcap

[though it does resemble an inocybe]

Scarlet Waxcap 

or possibly H. helobia

Mousepee Pinkgill

[What a name!]

I think this is

Slimy Waxcap

[despite not looking that slimy to me]

Goblet Waxcap

[size, yellow cap fringe]

Parrot Waxcap

Probably - stem different from ones below

The following fungi are all the same species [probably] in increasing age [definitely - if they're the same species];

Luminous!

Going..

Gone

Blackening Waxcap. Does what it says on the tin.

Crimson Waxcap

[Found picked and posed like this,

white stem base 'diagnostic']

I think this might be a pinkgill,

E. chalybaeum?

Scarlet Waxcap?
[At the time, I was confident these were different
 to the Crimsons above, eg. having no white in the stems]

I think this is

Vermilion Waxcap

Aren't they all gorgeous? That young Blackening in particular shone in the sunlight like it was an electric light; amazing thing.


Much less easy on the mundane normal eye were the wonderful exposures of classic Carboniferous geology.

I could go on at length about successions, CUFU sequences, and general stratigraphic cooing, but as this post is far too long already, here's a few shots of dull grey rocks to bore you non-geologists to sleep;

Spot the boundary, anyone?

Another quarry, same strata

Close up

Yet another quarry, same strata

Ok, enough with that, cool though it is..

Grey rocks in layers

But not featureless!

Shall I be merciful?

Ahh, I suppose so.

Here's something pretty for those who don't appreciate the lithological;

Berry picturesque

[Oh dear]

Well, that'll do I think.


Be Seeing You..




[[*May technically be a mountain, but it acts like a hill.]]
[[**Roughly corresponding to warm shallow sea, big river, forested swamp, respectively ]]
[[***Sometimes, the Goddess of Birding likes me]]