An old wife's tale

A welcome bit of colour on a dark, cold day.
The orange structures on this bit of dead wood are the fruiting bodies of the  yellow brain fungus Tremella mesenterica.
The fungus has an irregular shape with lobes that are yellow and  slimy when wet. As it dries out it  progressively turns bright and finally rusty orange as here.
Yellow brain does not feed on the dead wood but is a parasite feeding on another, wood-rotting,  fungus Peniophora. 
The yellow brain fungus is also known as witches' butter. In the bad old days it was thought that if it appeared on the gate or door of a house it meant that a witch had cast a spell on the family living there.