Thursday, October 13, 2016

Mushrooms Galore!

The North Woods after a rain in late September is a garden of mushrooms.  I lost track of how many I saw, and gave up on trying to identify the species.  Decided to just sit back and enjoy these creatures of the northern forest.

I naturally gravitate to close-ups of mushrooms, but sometimes the context, the old mossy log and a few ferns, the brown against the green, makes an even better picture.

Rather than sprawl across the wet forest floor, I attempted to use the swinging viewfinder on my camera, with the digital screen view, to get a picture looking upwards at these mushrooms - not very successfully I'm afraid, but an interesting viewpoint.

This White Birch tree is somehow still standing, but it's days are undoubtedly numbered!

Looking up here I used a fill in flash rather than an extra high ISO to light up the bracket fungus.

Just a patch of brown mushrooms in the grass.

This one reminds me of the Deadly Amanita; maybe it is.  My rule of thumb is not to eat any mushrooms you don't buy in a store!

An orange jelly fungus on a fallen Spruce log.

Another use of a fill-in flash to brighten these toadstools in a dark corner.

This was undoubtedly the most interesting fungus I found, and there was actually quite a bit of it, spread across about 8 feet of forest floor where a couple of big Spruce had been cut down.  In spite of its unique form, I'm been unable to identify it.

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I finished my biggest summer project today, except for tidying up - a small waterfall feature in the garden, four years in the making.  I should have taken more pictures, but I'll try to find one or two of them.  And tonight we're getting frost again.  The temperature just plunged after 4 p.m., to the point it was frigidly cold outside, though that's mostly because we're not used to it yet.  In January, 5°C feels downright balmy!

15 comments:

  1. Love the fungi! Such beautiful forms!

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  2. I've seen that last one myself, but I don't know what it is. They are all interesting and well photographed. I enjoyed the wet and mossy setting. :-)

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  3. These are fantastic. I would love a good mess of coral mushrooms but have not found any this year. Glad you have a good crop.

    It is difficult to accept that even though we still have the "know how" our "can do" is getting too old.

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  4. Nice series of images FG. I was shocked at the number (types and quantity) of mushrooms in the forests near Tobermory. A bumper crop year for certain. They make such interesting photographic subjects.

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  5. Awesome fungi photos . It got cold here last night to and frosty went down to zero BRR ! Thanks for sharing , Have a good weekend !

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  6. You've captured these beautifully. Such a variety.

    I noticed a temperature drop in the day yesterday, and we had a frost in the night.

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  7. There seem to be a lot of fungus this year. We saw so many more than other years at Shaw Woods Outdoor Education center last week.

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  8. That's is quite a collection of mushrooms.
    We had our first light frost last night.

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  9. Your fungi photos are beautiful. I especially like the last one and hope someone can identify it. Your pond project sounds interesting and I hope you share it with us. It is going down below zero tonight for the first time. You're right about 5 degrees feeling balmy in January. How our perspective changes!!

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  10. They are so pretty ♥ Happy Friday ♥

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  11. congrats on your project competition. that's a long time, i'm sure it is beautiful!!! we have not had much rain and therefore not many mushrooms. your fungi are pretty fancy and quite plentiful!!!

    i'm excited to see the waterfall!!!

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  12. you got some awesome shots there, think my favourite is the last one :-)

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  13. Love all the different varieties of mushrooms you captured.

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  14. There are so many kinds of fungus. I like taking pictures and then researching them in books and online if that doesn't work. The last one might be a coral fungus of some kind. We have those around here. - Margy

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