Slime mould

It's easy to spot these splashes of colour on fallen logs on a dreary day like today...but get up close and marvel at the detail! These are the close-packed fruiting bodies of (I think) Arcyria ferruginea, one of the amazing slime moulds that goes through a series of remarkable morphological transformations during its life cycle. From this stage minute spores will be liberated and will germinate if they land on a suitable substrate. The spores then develop into different forms of cells that can fuse sexually and develop eventually into a giant single cell structure, the plasmodium, that can move over logs and other vegetation in search of food. Given the right conditions, this eventually changes into a mass of fruiting bodies again, as seen here. Fascinating organisms that are great fun to track down.