dearhumi

Thank you very much Mark, really appreciate your help as I'm fumbling in the dark somewhat when identifying fungus and lichen but just loved the leathery threads.

Thanks Machi. I was pretty excited when Brian38 identified this for me - it had been nagging at me for months!

That is some fabulous photograph! We so envy you your Otter spottings - we have been doing a survey for 3 years for our local Otter Group and all we see is spraint, pad marks and holts - one day....

Thanks for the note about Otzi the Iceman carrying birch polypore - I will never look at it in quite the same way again!

Very excited about this post - it looks very similar to a patch of jelly-like substance which we saw on the metal strut of a road bridge over the river. Do you think it could be a nostoc? I'll post a photo if you wouldn't mind have a look at it.

Great to see that you returned to the site for another look at the fungus and to note that it matches our finding ie old warty growths on the script fungus which was growing the branch of a dead tree. Thank you so much for your helpful info, I have learned a lot - I didn't even know that lichen attracted parasitic fungus, a whole new thoroughly daunting area of exploration!

Thank you for posting this - we spotted a similar occurrence in damp deciduous woods (mainly hazel, ash, birch, hawthorn etc) here in Somerset, UK; we have been unable to identify it so will keep checking in the hope someone will ID yours!