silverguide.site –

A sultry afternoon, with hardly a breath of wind. A few clouds, barely moving, are perfectly reflected in Tunstall reservoir’s mirror-smooth surface, only disturbed by the wake of a flotilla of mallards. From here, high on the dam wall, there’s a fine view down this secluded valley’s patchwork of recently cut hay meadows, sun-bleached and yet to regreen through lack of rain.

We are heading for the shade of Backstone Bank: ancient oak woodland that clings to the steep eastern flank of the reservoir. When we were here in May it was alive with sounds of newly arrived blackcaps, cuckoos and pied flycatchers; today there’s a listless, uncanny silence, only broken by the rustle of falling leaves, prematurely shed by drought-stressed trees. On the woodland floor, enchanter’s nightshade, limp-leaved, has raced through flowering; its burred seeds are hooked into our socks.

Ahead, there is an annual spectacle developing just off the footpath – sulphur-yellow bracket fungi on the trunk of a decaying oak. We first noticed Laetiporus sulphureus, chicken of the woods, on this tree six years ago, and every August since it has produced a new crop of fruiting bodies. This is no ephemeral toadstool; it’s here for the long haul, until it has reduced its host’s heartwood to dust.

This year’s growth is still in its early stages; eventually its tiers will reach dinner-plate proportions. It seems odd that these plump, spongy new brackets should be in their prime now, swelling while the growth of everything around withers in parched conditions. But fungi live by their own rules: as their hyphae creep though their host, their enzymes dismantle the oak’s lignin heartwood, molecule by molecule. There’s enough food in this old tree to sustain them for a few years.

The brackets, cool and clammy to the touch, leave a strong mushroom aroma on my fingers. Not particularly appetising. Guidebooks say that chicken of the woods is edible, with the caveat that it can cause nausea in some, and a caution to try a small amount first. We leave it intact, to release millions of spores. It will feed multitudes of insects, some already gathering – whole communities that will breed in its clammy, pillowy folds.

• Under the Changing Skies: The Best of the Guardian’s Country Diary, 2018-2024, is available now at guardianbookshop.com