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urbpanLast week I led the earliest and driest fungi field walk I've ever done. When I say dry, I don't mean that I wasn't scintillating and poetic in my presentation, I mean that it had been sunny and breezy for several days running, and the soil and leaf litter and dead wood was all dry as dust. Fungi need moisture to produce mushrooms, so most of what we found were old dry specimens, crispy relics from the previous fall. But I had the idea to look inside an old rotten straw bale and...
Coprinoid mushrooms! These were still intact within the wet innards of the bale.
I also found the barn cat, a handsome new one. I was saddened that Beautiful was not there, but we donated him to the farm many years ago, and I guess he's probably gone and died by now.
I stopped by to see an educator teaching an impromptu rock balancing class (!!) and while I sat balancing and chatting, this beetle dropped by. It has a reverse color scheme from the scarlet malachite beetle, but the same colors. The dust still hasn't settled on the last beetle ID conversation, but we may as well start another! What is?
As the mushroom class roamed, looking in dark corners for hidden fungi, we came across this butterfly--a cabbage white, or close relative?
Up by the parking lot, on one of the busiest days of the year for the farm, a good looking member of the biggest bird species in North America struts by.
Coprinoid mushrooms! These were still intact within the wet innards of the bale.
I also found the barn cat, a handsome new one. I was saddened that Beautiful was not there, but we donated him to the farm many years ago, and I guess he's probably gone and died by now.
I stopped by to see an educator teaching an impromptu rock balancing class (!!) and while I sat balancing and chatting, this beetle dropped by. It has a reverse color scheme from the scarlet malachite beetle, but the same colors. The dust still hasn't settled on the last beetle ID conversation, but we may as well start another! What is?
As the mushroom class roamed, looking in dark corners for hidden fungi, we came across this butterfly--a cabbage white, or close relative?
Up by the parking lot, on one of the busiest days of the year for the farm, a good looking member of the biggest bird species in North America struts by.
