Pixie Cups

Another warm spell arrived overnight, and the temperature soared to +10°C, taking away the little bit of snow we had decorating the grass and garden.  So I headed out along our old stone fencerow again, to hunt for different kinds of lichens.

All of these are Pixie Cup lichens.  There are actually several species in this group, but they are virtually identical visually.  Exact species must be determined by their chemistry.  Pixie Cups is good enough for me!

This time I took my tripod, a kneeling pad, and my macro lens and took my time, paying attention to shutter speed and depth of fields to try and get sharper pictures.  I'm pleased with the results, though I've been very lazy about doing this the past summer.

They're mostly just about 1/2 an inch tall, and the 'cups' are 1/8 of an inch across or less.  I really had to bend down low and hunt to find these among the mossy boulders.

This group was growing on the vertical face of one boulder, curving and growing upwards.

So we end November with almost no snow, and very little in the forecast, but probably colder temperatures coming.  On Saturday we visited the Christmas Market in Flesherton, an important event in the season for those in the know around here - and we got all our Christmas baking done in 1/2 an hour!

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