Witchy Fungi are Gathering in the Hills

Go to the beech runs near Bix Bottom in the Chilterns and see spooky mushrooms weaving their autumn magic.

It's a sure sign that we are well into autumn when these spotty hats stand up through the golden litter of November leaves. They're called Magpie Fungus but to me they could just as well be known as Witch's Hats. Here they are in the damp days after Halloween and Guy Fawkes, huddled in little groups, quietly cackling in the shadows, hidden under protective branches of beech.

They are related to the Lawyer's Wig and the Ink Cap and, like them, their young bodies appear like decorated eggs under the leaves. They wait for a warm and dewey night, then burst magically upwards on long, white stems.

It is mushroom season all over the Chilterns, but near Bix Bottom the combination of leaf mould, humus, and warming leaf litter is as rich as anywhere this year. Here the Chiltern Way and Oxfordshire Way run into each other beside the Warburg Nature Reserve. They take you along to a peculiar abandoned church, St James's.

We are in a region of ancient paths. The Icknield Way is not far off, sharing its track in places with the Ridgeway. Bix was once a Roman settlement and there was a thriving tangle of villages here in the Middle Ages, astride a well-travelled highway. But the Black Death depleted populations and there were simply too many churches. Traffic began to follow surer routes and bridges to the south so St James's fell out of use. Now it is a peaceful and charming ruin.

You can make a loop by starting at the Warburg car park, walking east through the reserve to the junction of the Oxfordshire Way and Chiltern Way, following the Chiltern Way south to Bix Bottom and the church, turning back west towards Crocker End and returning to the car park through more magical woodland.

The paths at this end of the Chilterns are quiet. You may be on your own, though not entirely. We had nine Red Kites circling above us at one point and some in the trees, keeping us in sight, mewing, whistling and crying. On a darkening November afternoon this is a landscape that belongs to carrion-seekers and, maybe, to woodland imps and spell-weavers, hiding under pointed, spotted, fungus-like hats.

The walk is three or four miles and you're back within two hours, but you can stretch it further if you like. Either way, after a ramble under the beeches you'll be ready for some late afternoon refreshment.

Thanks, as ever, to the mushroom man, the late Roger Phillips.

Also to Hedley Thorne for the tip.