ABOUT ME

I live in a camper van with a West Highland Terrier for company.
My passion is creating images but it is a work in progress.
I am always willing to share what knowledge I have and can be contacted through the comments on this post or e-mail ADRIAN
ALL IMAGES WILL ENLARGE WITH A LEFT CLICK

Friday 5 September 2014

FUNGI WEATHER. (05/09/14)

It’s warm, misty and drizzly. It’s that sort of rain that doesn’t seem much but if you are out in it you are soaking wet in minutes. It’s very good for fungi.

_MG_3454   Common Puffball. There are lots of these but though they are edible they don’t taste of much and are very chewy if you don’t peel them. It’s not worth the effort. The Giant Puffball is a different matter. They are great sliced and fried in bacon fat. If you find one grab it as I have left several to grow a bit and the damn slugs have eaten them.

There are lots of the following. I thought they were Pleated Inkcaps but when I took a spore print it was brown not black. I then decided they were Little Japanese Parasols. Yesterday I found a young one. I put some stones round it but when I went back at tea time it had gone.

_MG_3473

_MG_3472    I suspect this naughty little girl ate it. I saw her scratching the Puffballs up. She has another three weeks of safety before the dumb start shooting the dumb. I hope my fungus gave her the itch. There are quite a few young Pheasants about and they are almost tame.

This morning I got enough shots to complete the montage. I just hope it’s a montage of the same thing.

cp2     From top left clockwise. Brand new, normal, about dead and the spore print of the second one. I have done much research; well, half an hour and think it is Bolbitius vitellious; Cowpat Fungus. It doesn’t smell of anything much but is slimy when wet. Whatever it is, it’s what birders call a lifer. I haven’t seen one before. How do you birders ID something you have never seen?

These grow really fast so I may dig up a square foot of meadow and try for a time lapse. I can easily do twelve hours of time lapse. More if push comes to shove. The problem is knowing which bit of field to dig up. Donald has given me permission and lent me a spade and an old ice cream container. He thinks I’m barking mad but assumes all Tories are. I keep saying I’m not a bloody Tory but unless I learn to speak Weegie or Gallic I don’t think I’ll convince him. If I cut a notch ending in a little hole for it’s stem in a bit of white card I may even get to see it build up a spore pattern.

Why I bother with natural history I don’t know. I rarely get an ID correct but I do enjoy taking pictures of little things. Rolling around in wet grass is not much fun but brings back happy memories.

Have a great weekend.

22 comments:

  1. You should point out that Tories shoot nature with a gun and not a camera lol.
    As a birder I used to id lifers with books but these days it's a digital field guide via a phone app.

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  2. Oh Adrian! Now I know what Puffballs are! I call them "palline" and I must say that they are not bad when you cook them together with other kind of mushrooms to a spaghetti sauce!
    Thankss for posting the puffballs I like the name!

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    1. Laura. it is a good time of the year for getting free food. I have left these to grow old as there is not much else about yet. These are small ones and don't get much bigger. The palline is the big one that grows on it's own and is a meal. These little ones aren't bad. Just time consuming for little taste. I enjoy pasta with fungi but usually use potatoes instead of pasta.

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  3. Douglas, they have already started shooting peasants in England.
    I was using Natural England on t'internet for this wee fungus and it got conflicting.

    Not to worry. I got the juvenile Pheasant ID'd. I hope, I hope she stops here where she is safe from the Hoorays.

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  4. I love fungi. They are fascinating. Have you come across the one that grows on trees and tastes liked chicken? It's delicious. I've eaten young puffballs; nice fried in butter.

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    1. Frances yes I did try Chicken of the Woods once. It's a bracket fungus and should only be picked when it is young and yellow, it goes whiteish as it ages. I know they have or are trying to discard Latin names but it is Laetiporus sulphureus. It is very bad for men. Ladies can eat and digest many more fungi than we proper folk can. You can eat horse mushrooms which look like a field mushroom but stain yellow. They poison men. We are delicate little flowers.
      I will never understand the female of our species. They can eat owt, Bleed for a few days a month and not die, survive earthquakes and floods. Just superior you lot are.

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  5. Adriaan everything seems much earlier than other years, but I may well enjoy it.

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  6. Bas, it only varies a bit. It should be a good year for mushrooms.

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  7. Great mushrooms and superb photos of the Ms Pheasant.

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  8. It does seem to have been a good year for fungi. I think I've seen more this year than ever before.

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    1. They haven't really started here. I got a few in the woods but no more than usual.

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  9. Replies
    1. Monica, I don't think they have got going here yet.

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  10. It's a cool examination of shape and great collection of fungi. And very cool pheasant!

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  11. I draw the line when it comes to identifying fungus. Birds? We've consulted our bird book so many times that a lifer is well know before we ever see it. However I'm not a lister or a lifer. I keep track of birds in my yard.

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    1. Red, they can be the very devil to tell apart.

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  12. Fungi are beautiful, and they are unique with their forms!

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  13. Maria, I look at learned people and wonder. Fungi some are beautiful and others downright ugly but creating sub species on spore size is just silly.

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