Rotten wood may not sound very exotic or important. These days we tidy our gardens and every fallen bit of wood gets collected and ends up in the ever fashionable wood burner. But keeping everything looking tidy is to the detriment of our wildlife.
Many insects including the larval stage of the ever rarer stag beetle, live and eat rotting wood. The stag beetle needs to spend up to four years in a piece of rotten wood to reach its adult stage.
You may not like insects but they are the main food source for many bird species and for small mammals such as shrews and hedgehog. You would have to be particularly heartless not to like the shrew with his twitchy nose, or the delightful Mrs Tiggywinkle.
Personally I rather like the various moulds and fungus that live on the wood. I have seen some marvellous yellow bracket fungus and some rather strange shiny orange ones. More common are the plain white or brown brackets, but commonest of all around here, and delightful in the early dew or pale sunshine in the dappled woods, are the silvery types such as agaric, schizophylum commune.
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