Fruiting bounty

Orange mushrooms with light concave center

I was beginning to lament the end of mushroom hunting season when nature surprised me once again. Walking through the woods last week I stumbled across a patch of bright orange mushrooms. Whiskers twitching and tail wagging, I pushed through the grass and called out to Tinkerbelle. Tucked away in the shadow of the tall grass, a large fruiting colony had spread through the undergrowth. We had never seen anything like it before. Delighted by this find, we stopped by to admire it often. Then one drizzly morning as we went by the patch, we noticed that the fruitbodies had changed dramatically. The caps had flattened and the color had deepened to a dark orange creating the appearance of a completely different mushroom.  While surprised by this development, it is not unusual for mushrooms to change as they age. Our best guess as to the species is that these are Jack O'Lanterns or a type of Lactarius.

As the days went by its appearance changed dramatically

Sam I am

This week a new member joined the pack. The first thing that struck me about the new member was his unusual appearance.  He was short and round with very little fur, no snout, and no ears.  Tinkerbelle said "Come meet Sam." "Sam," he said, "I am." It turns out Sam is to be in charge of cleaning up after the pack. I had my doubts about whether Sam enjoyed this task much as he seemed to emit a continuous grumble even as he went about performing his assigned duties. But my concerns were allayed when he nudged me off of my favorite rug and set about enthusiastically cleaning it. I'm beginning to think Sam rather likes his task, zooming around importantly, nudging us all out of his way, then retreating to his favorite spot under the dresser to take a nap.

He nudged me off my favorite rug

The hawks again

One day, earlier this week, we encountered the hawks again. It was by the stream that we saw the first one. We must have startled it as we walked by as it rose suddenly from below and disappeared into the trees. Then the air filled with screeches - the kind a hawk makes when it circles the skies. We scanned the treetops trying to follow the sound but saw nothing but the dense canopy. We had started to move on when, from  the opposite direction, the second hawk appeared flying high up into the tree before us. Then we understood. The startled offspring had called for its mother and here she was. From the branches above she watched us, and when satisfied that we presented no threat, she silently departed in the direction of the stream. We chatted happily about seeing the hawks again as we made our way home, stopping only to admire a butterfly as it landed in the grass.

Monarch butterfly on a blade of grass

Favorite things

One of my favorite things to do on our daily walks is to sniff out mushrooms and other fungi and point them out to Tinkerbelle. Tinkerbelle keeps track of all the different varieties that I find. The peak season for mushroom fruiting is spring and early summer, and so by now, most of the mushrooms have disappeared. But, sometimes when you are least expecting it, you find the thing you weren't expecting to find.  And so it was this morning, as we walked along the trail, that I caught the pleasant scent of a polypore. Tracking the scent, I uncovered a large fruiting specimen carefully concealed in the foliage. Commonly found in wooded areas, polypores are identified by their dense layers of fan-shaped brackets.  This one is possibly a bitter polypore or a black-staining polypore.

I tracked the scent of a polypore

The polypore was concealed in the foliage