LBMs, mostly.

 And continuing with the mushrooms. I went out looking for birds, and, of course, came home with more mushroom pics. And a couple of birds; photos still to be processed.

These mushrooms are from the hillside above Elk Falls.

Fly agaric, Amanita muscaria

An appetizing chocolatey brown mushroom. Deer mushroom, maybe?

Growing on old wood.

Small, gilled, translucent. And so shiny!

Growing in a crack in a wet log.

Half hidden under step moss.

A young Rusty-Gilled polypore, Gloeophyllum saepiarium.

And it's still raining. Mushroom weather.

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Siguiendo con las fotos de hongos. Salí a buscar pájaros, y regresé a casa con más fotos de hongos. Como era de esperar; sigue lloviendo a diario. (Pero sí encontré unos pajaritos. Las fotos quedan por procesar.)

Estos hongos son algunos de los que vi en las laderas arriba de las cataratas.

1. Amanita muscaria. Muy venenoso, muy bello.
2. Un hongo color de chocolate. Pluteus cervinus, el hongo de los venados, tal vez.
3. Un grupo de pequeños creciendo en madera podrida.
4. Un hongo muy pequeño, con laminillas, translúcido. ¡Y muy lustroso!
5. Este crece en un grieta en un tronco mojado.
6. Hongo medio escondido entre musgos Hylocomium splendens.
7. Políporo de laminillas rojizas, juvenil, Gloeophyllum saepiarium.

Los meteorológicos se pueden ir de vacaciones. Va a llover casi todos los dias en lo que resta del mes. Los hongos están felices.

KIller

 A couple of mushrooms seen on the Lupin Falls trail. With visitors.

Amanita muscaria, Fly Amanita. With a fly.

And with another fly, and rove beetles roving about.

Amanita muscaria var. muscaria has the red cap. The yellowish capped variety is Amanita muscaria var. formosa. They both have the characteristic "warts" on the cap.

And they're both poisonous. The name, "fly amanita" and in Latin, "muscaria", possibly 

... comes from its historical usage as a fly killer. Small pieces of dried mushroom are placed in a bowl of milk. Flies are attracted to a chemical compound in the flesh of this mushroom that intoxicates them. They fall into the milk and drown, or die from the poisons they have consumed." (Common Mushrooms of the Northwest)

I wonder if the live mushroom, solid, makes the flies sick.

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Estos son dos hongos que encontré cerca de las cataratas Lupin. Son Amanita muscaria, var. formosa,el hongo llamado matamoscas. El primero viene con una mosca; el segundo lleva además unos escarabajos estafiliínidos.

Amanita muscaria var. muscaria tiene el sombrero rojo. El que tiene el sombrero amarillento es la Amanita muscaria var. formosa. Los dos hongos llevan las manchas características encima.

Y los dos son venenosos. El nombre, "matamoscas' y en latín, muscaria" ...

... se refieren a su uso histórico como matamoscas. Pequeños pedazos del hongo reseco se ponen en un recipiente con leche. Un compuesto químico en la carne de este hongo atrae a las moscas, y las emborracha. Se caen a la leche y se ahogan, o se mueren a causa del veneno que han ingerido." (de Hongos Comunes del Noroeste)

Me pregunto si el hongo vivo, no disuelto en leche, es capaz de dañarlas.

Button, button

There's a patch of grass and clover between the parking lot and the highway at Oyster Bay. Not a lawn, not a meadow; just an open area with a picnic bench or two under cottonwoods. I've never seen anyone crossing it, except for me and my family. Cutting across it the other day, I saw many large Amanita mushrooms, all stomped and kicked to bits. Who does this? What harm would they have done, left in place?

A couple of buttons had sprung up since the vandals left:

Amanita muscaria, the fly agaric. About 2 inches across.

Another. On the stick at the left are a bunch of tiny mushrooms, looking like shelf polypores.

There were a few big puffballs, too. Nobody had touched these.

Mature puffball, with open pore ready to release its spores. Not edible at this stage.

Several puffballs, Lycoperdon perlatum, here. Not ripe, edible and choice as long as it's completely white inside.

I poked at the brown puffball with a finger, gently; it released a puff of brown spores. But after the mistreatment of the Amanitas, I didn't want to disturb anything, so I left it to wait for a good rain.

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En el parque en Oyster Bay, hay un triángulo de pasto y tréboles entre el estacionamiento y la carretera. No exactamente un césped, ni tampoco tierra abandonada; hay un par de mesas para picnic y un tablero informativo, todo bajo álamos altos. Nunca he visto a nadie en este lugar, a no ser yo y mi familia, cuando les llevé a mirar el tablero.

Cruzándolo el otro día, encontré un gran número de hongos Amanita, todos pateados, machucados, hecho pedazos. ¿Quién hará tal cosa? ¡No le hacían daño a nadie!

Había dos botones, salidos después de que se fueron los vándalos. Eran de unas dos pulgadas de diámetro.

También encontré algunos hongos "puffball", que emiten nubes de esporas cuando están maduros. La primera foto muestra uno ya listo. A un toque suave de mi dedo, le salió un soplo de polvo café.

En la última foto, hay tres, dos todavía escondidos bajo tierra y hojas caídas. Así, blancos completamente por dentro, se pueden comer, y son deliciosos, fritos con mantequilla.

Los dejé en paz. Un episodio de vandalismo es más que suficiente.

Whenever it stops raining

A dozen mushroom photos.

I find these encouraging, hope-inducing. Because it's blowing and storming outside these days, the forest floors and fern beds are layered with soggy, slippery, browning leaves, the night falls far too soon. And I have damaged my shoulder, and instead of getting better, it is stiffening and aching, possibly because of the cold and damp. Even my rain-loving cat has holed up under a feather blanket. I'm tempted to brood. To think that the forests and shores are closed to me now, until the spring.

And then, here are these mushroom photos. Taken in November, in December, even in January, of previous years. This weather is temporary, they tell me. The sun will shine again, on mushrooms and lichens, on tree lace and moss. It's time to dig out my winter boots and jackets. And clean the innards of my camera.

Down in the grass, Tyee Spit. October 30.

Amanita. November, Oyster Bay

Boletus, November, Oyster Bay

Slug-nibbled boletus and tinies, Oyster Bay. November.

"shroom, moss, evergreen needles. November

Those same boletus, on my return trip through the Oyster Bay woods. I liked the fern decoration.

These grow out of cracks in well-aged logs in the Salmon Point woods. December.

Salmon Point, December

Polypore on wet log, Salmon Point. December

And the end of January. Tyee Spit, after the snow melted.

On my favourite big log on Tyee Spit, January 29. All summer it sits there inert; any fungi are in hiding. They come out when it rains.

Log along the shore, Tyee Spit. January.

Now, where did I stash those boots?

Caution required

And a few more mushrooms ...

Alcohol inkies, inky cap, tippler's bane. Coprinus atramentarius.

Like shaggy manes, they turn black and oozy as they mature, but these have relatively smooth caps. These are buttons. They're edible, as long as you stay away from alcohol for two days after eating them. They deactivate a human enzyme that protects us from the effects of alcohol, so that the alcohol, not the innocent mushroom, gives us a batch of nasty symptoms; a hangover amplified.

More inkies, maturing.

An amanita button, possibly Amanita muscaria, as found, ripped up and left to die on fallen leaves.

Don't try eating these! Hallucinogenic, poisonous, sometimes lethal. They do look tasty, though!

Two flat brown shelves on a old stump. Artist's conk, Ganoderma applanatum, I think.

From my mushroom guide: "It has been calculated that a single large specimen of artist's conk can produce 30 billion spores a day during the summer months, for a total of 4.5 trillion spores annually! This is the source of the brown dust-like coating that often covers the surface of this conk.

You can try to eat these; I hear that the flavour is "mild", but really, they're tough as old-growth lumber.

Springtail feast

I always look for slug bites on the mushrooms. It's one of a slug's favourite foods. I didn't think to look for springtail nibbles until I blew up these photos.

Amanita. No good for humans, but the springtails love it. There are 16 on this cap.

Boletus. Only one springtail here, but he seems to have eaten out a small cavity.

Flattish beige mushroom, with 3 springtails.

Slim harvest

A few more mushrooms...

Mushrooms, moss, and Douglas fir needles.

The straight, flat needles of Douglas fir have two pale white stripes running the length of each needle,... (TLEHCS)

It hasn't been a good year for mushrooms. In my usual haunts, I find only the smallest, pale brown ones, and pinhead white mushrooms; even those are scarce. I compared with my notes from last year. Where I found many and varied mushrooms by this date, now I find almost none. And none of the large, showy ones at all.

Discussing with other local mushroom observers, I have heard the same observation; the beautiful Amanitas are nowhere to be seen, there are no puffballs, the pine mushrooms near Elk Falls are missing, the turkey tails are old and dry; there are no new ones.

I seem to be finding fewer slugs this fall, too. Mushrooms are among their favourite food sources.

Could it be because of the long, hot, dry (very dry) summer we've just had? What else has changed?

Or is it also due to habitat loss? One of the places where I used to always see mushrooms, especially Amanitas, has been torn up by earth-moving machinery on its way into the bush to clear ground for a small shed; a lot of damage for a few square metres of use. There are no mushrooms here, not even the little brown ones.

Beside Woodhus Slough

The annual winter Comox Valley Trumpeter Swan count started again a few weeks ago. My group this year will be surveying the Woodhus Slough once a week until the end of March, following a path that skirts the shore side of the slough.

The trail goes from Salmon Point Marina to the Oyster River estuary. 

The official public trail crosses the slough before it turns towards the shore, but this year, with all the steady rain we've been having, that part of the trail is completely flooded.

Only the tops of the fence posts along the trail are visible.

This area, in other years, has been open field. There are a few ducks, mallards and pintails, at the far side.

It is a pleasant walk, but we have seen few birds. Someone was out hunting; we heard the shots, and the distant clamour of Canada geese as they fled the area. A large flock of snow geese flew overhead, circled a couple of times, and left. And there have been no swans yet.

But there are mushrooms everywhere; showy amanitas, small brown umbrellas, wine-red Russulas (I think), and more.

Amanitas:

Fly agaric. Orange or red cap, with remnants of the veil, white gills and stem, with more veil shreds.

An almost clear cap, but the obvious "skirt" of the torn veil around the stalk.

Another, with reindeer lichen. I don't know if this is the same species; some Amanitas are edible. But I'm not experimenting, because others are extremely toxic.

Typical fly agaric. Deadly poison, but very pretty.

Almost colourless.

Apple-red mushrooms:

Red caps, white stalks and gills.

Tempting.

Clean, white gills and stalk. No traces of a veil.

And another pink mushroom:

Unidentified. There were only a few of these.

And a patch of white coral fungus:

These are growing on a pile of crumbling logs, covered in moss.

Each clump is about the size of my (small) fist.

And a bit more lichen. These are everywhere; on logs, on bare soil, on moss.

Arrow tip to tip is about 2 km.

Orange and poisonous.

Fly agaric mushroom. Deadly.