WONDERS OF THE WOODS. (03/10/13)

What a night, I’m parked in a wonderful wood but a combination of heavy rain and the trees dropping gallons of it at a time made for a sleepless night. I did get a couple of hours then gave in, got up and decided that a few hours with Blender 3D would pass the hours of darkness on.

As always it was a case of two steps forward and one and three quarters backwards. I should be happy, it is often the other way round. The movie The Christmas Card is a little bit nearer. I was going to have the words Merry Christmas rise from a pool of water in bits and Shards then come together with a fanfare of trumpets and lots of coloured lights. Inspired by my environment I decided it might look a bit tacky….I know Christmas is tacky but decided that the bits of letters creeping gently from a lake would be much posher. I UV wrapped or unwrapped a photograph of Derwentwater onto my backcloth and a second base board thingy. Which is a fluid. I’m not sure that UV mapping works on fluid surfaces. It may if I bake the fluid first. My bottom base board has to be a solid object for if it isn’t when I run the animation the pieces of letters just keep falling. Hopefully the animation I’ll create will run backwards to give the work of art I’m trying to achieve. It’s not looking good at the moment but I’ll keep on being trying. I suspect the job would run smoother with a few Liberty Caps.

The rain stopped so off we toddled fungi hunting….The rain had not done them much good. It has trashed them. They will come back again if we get a dry day or so.

I have grouped them together and identified the ones I could, the rest you can treat as a quiz or art. As always any help is most welcome…Trevor you don’t have to feel obliged to trawl your library for a day. Just guess like I do. The pioneers of Mycology just called stuff anything they felt like….life was easy in the olden days.

  I don’t know, there are hundreds of them and they all look dead they are 4” to 10” in diameter growing in mixed woodland, oak, beech, pine and birch. For the most part they grow in clearings. I think they may be dead Funnel Caps.

  It’s 2” in diameter and smells of ammonia.

   Not in my book but a pretty mushroom about 3” across.

   This again is 3” diameter. I suspect it is a Rufus Milk Cap. An old one.

   I am guessing this is a Bolete. It is a giant, it would make a great hat.

    A Common Puffball….all on it’s own and eaten by a slug.

   Freckled Flame Cap. This is only my guess it’s growing on a pine log.

   I have no idea but it is attractive. Again it smells of pis---ammonia.

I am going for Brain Fungus. I’ve never seen them unfurl the coloured bit before though.

  Jelly Antler Fungus.

That’s by no means all of them but you’ll start thinking I’m a bit Special Needs if I carry on. They will all enlarge with a click and are strobe lit, it has barely got light today.

These two images of the Bird/Red Squirrel feeding station were taken at noon today. It has brightened up a bit but not much. The Nuthatches are stealing the Red Squirrels nuts and stuffing them in cracks in tree bark. I’m away to reprimand them.

Have fun.