UK Fungi lengthen breeding seasons with milder winters and spring.

Alan Gange at Royal Holloway, University of London and his dad, on the basis of studies on 315 naturally resident fungi around Sunny Salisbury by his dad, Edward Gange says many fungi appear to have doubled the length of their breeding season over 50 years from 33 to 74 days. As a consequence of higher temperatures many species now appear above ground in July, and due to scarcity of ground frosts can continue breeding into December, some fruiting twice a year.

Gange says lack of spring maintains allows the underground maintenance of the mycelium resulting in fruiting in March to May.For example in the 50's the February average was 3.5C and this last decade it has been 5.2C.

In many respects, this dramatic change may have positive ecological effects, says young Gange. "Mushrooms provide a huge food resource for insects, which themselves are food for birds," he says. Accelerate decomposition of wood and leaf matter, also provides for rapid release of soil nutrients for plants.

However Edward Gange , whilst convinced the climate is changing - at least within a 30km radius of Salisbury - he sensibly prefers to attribute the warming to natural cycles rather than humanity's production of greenhouse gases.(it won't stop others from drawing that inference however)

"When I was a lad, it was an absolutely categorical fact that Red Admirals would not survive the winter," he said.

"This year we saw them on 19 January. That's a heck of a change, and it's not the only one."

Here on Lord Patel's Northern Estates, no Red Admirals have been seen but Peacocks (see pic)(butterflies not birds) have been enjoying the spring sunshine for over a month.

As a stonemason Edward will have seen many cemeteries, they are a rich source of sightings of both fungi and orchids, because they both prefer undisturbed soil. Increasingly however they suffer from dog-walkers who thoughtlessly damage them and whose left over dog turds with high acid content have a dire long term soil sterilising effect.

You can read the same story in BBC Online which has a hugely patronising piece about how old, retired Edward (a retired stonemason) learnt how to set up Excel spreadsheets(Wow!) and type in mountains of his historical data (Oooooh!) - as if using a PC was some act of incredible talent and skill - the schools are full of 7 year olds who can do that.... panzer divisions of grey panthers lurk out there , having swapped Local radio phone ins for on line Forums about group sex and jam making.