Chennau sp.
Lichen species.
Today didn’t produce the best photo’s or video (ho hum).
There are a few lichens which develop red spore heads.
Cen pen matsien (cymraeg) is one option - the match head lichen.
Interesting as Cen =lichen and scale, cen pen is also dandruff so it’s a matter of context.
Cheers J.P.
Now that’s a good reason to listen to others, i hadn’t thought of that angle
but you are right.
cheers J.P.
@dinas
Sounds like your “walks in the country” are rather similar to mine…
@robbruce
Oh, indeed! And though dragons do not occur naturally outside Wales, the fact they are mentioned in the Bible may account for other countries having a word for them.
Not to stick my ignorant size tens in here, but this thread is really interesting and makes me want to find out stuff!
This is just from looking stuff up on the internet, so it may be complete rubbish, but isn’t British Soldier lichen (cladonia cristatella) generally considered as confined to North America?
If it is rare or recently introduced, that would explain why there is no Welsh name for it, of course!
I thank you for showing such a keen interest and think you may well be correct.
i have removed that name.
My knowledge of lichens is very small and in the past trying to use microscope to
be sure has proven difficult (for me) to say the least,
cheers J.P.
Llygoden.
Castanwydden ber.
Mae’r dail yn eithaf mawr, hirgrwn ac wedi danheddog ymylon.
the leaves are quite big, oval and have serrated edges.
y cnau yn dod mewn cragen pigog.
the nuts come in shells spiny/prickly.
For those who noticed my black finger nail.
Dw i angen i fod yn ofalus gyda fy morthwyl !
i need to be careful with my hammer.
Cheers J.P.
Phaeolus schweinitzii.
bytholwyrdd - evergreen (i should have said fir tree).
this fungus sometimes known as the dyers mazegill from times when it was used
as a source of the bright colour.
Cheers J.P.
I’m still fumbling badly with the language of the cuff, hopefully a winter of this will lead
to something better next spring.
BTW, Wikipedia tells me that a hornet is just a big wasp anyway. smiley
Just picked up on this. We often see hornets (Vespa crabro) in Ceredigion. They are bigger but less aggressive than their near relatives the common wasp (Vespula vulgaris).
Hope I haven’t “stirred up a hornet’s nest” 
Having been stabbed half-to-death in the shoulder by a particularly bad-tempered wasp the other weekend, I find this extremely plausible. I suspect there are Great White sharks that are less aggressive than the common wasp.
I couldn’t even kill the damned thing, despite becoming increasingly frenzied in my attempts to beat myself about the shoulder. Next summer, I’m staying indoors.
That’s really interesting.
The August 2011 issue of the Llen Natur bulletin
Says they weren’t found further north than Monmouthshire til recently before that time (August 2011) but were spreading.
Sounds like they are becoming much more common in Wales!
So the Welsh name for hornet might become more established well-known!
(The bulletin gives “picwnen goch neu hornet”, by the way!)
Sh’mae Owain
The National Biodiversity Network shows the current record of professional sightings/reporting of hornets . It bears out my memory of seeing them more frequently when I lived in the East Midlands but I still feel I’ve seen a hornet or two per year since arriving in Ceredigion in the early 90s.
(This is my first attempt to post a pic on the new superforum - hope it works.)
Gwennol - Swallow
Encouraged by my success in posting a pic, how about this?
It’s a picture of swallows about to fledge (two of the clutch had already flown the “nest”) in the rafters of our garage. OK - it’s not exactly outside 
Is it just in my area, or have there been fewer around since we had that depressing run of about 5 wet summers? We used to have up to five nests in the passageway under our and our neighbour’s house, but we haven’t had fledglings for years now.
Good point RB
This photo was in fact taken 2 years ago and we’ve had fewer visitors since and no fledglings from our home. 
braf iawn i weld pobl eraill yn postio lluniau a sylwadau
very nice to see others posting pictures and comments.
Iwrch.
cheers J.P.
Having seen the pretty swallows, I though I might try to post this one of what was outside on my deck a few weeks ago. And yes y bran (the raven) was as big as it appears to be. I was not going onto my deck to visit the thing. Larger than it’s cousin, the common crow. We have tons of these beasties.
da iawn, occasional y cigfran around Newbury but doubt i would get close enough for such a photo.
The swallows were nice addition, they have about gone now (amser i ymfudo) time to migrate and it will be a challenge to maybe get some film of nest next year, a friend always had half a dozen nests in his stables, this year one nest so low numbers seem to be the norm.
cheers J.P.
Raven specifically is cigfran (meat-crow) just as rook is ydfran (corn-crow) and carrion crow is brân dyddyn (smallholding/croft crow - wonderful!).
I love the crows. A jay (sgrech y coed - screech of the woods!) flew alongside me for maybe fifty metres on my drive to work this morning. Magical!
cygfran [cyg+bran]… diolch robbruce. I appreciate it. Dwy’n trio dyscu, and was sure there must be a distinction, but couldn’t think it through. Gotcha! So would many be “cygfrain”, because we surely have many, all year round.