The Urban Pantheist

This summer has been unusually dry--we've had something like 2 inches of rain the entire summer (we average over 3 inches per month). As a mushroom guy, I've found it quite depressing. One day I woke up and the yard was a bit damp. I quickly moved from place to place to try to find live revived by the moisture. This may be Mycena corticola.


The north facing side of the shingle roof of our shed is thickly decorated with British soldier lichen.


A nearly hexagonal raft of infinitesimal bubbles on our bird bath.


Ants in general don't seem to be suffering in the drought, at least it seems many species are doing fine.

This time around mizdarkgirl suggested that we walk in the Blakely Hoar Nature Sanctuary in Brookline. We had twice as many people participating as we did January 2014. I took about a million photos, of which I've posted 20 or so:
( Read more... )

Buying a new lichen field guide and then going out to try to identify as many as possible was amazingly humbling. I'm gonna need someone to hold my hand through this process, because it's more difficult than I thought. If you are good at this, I need your help--it might be good to know these are all on Great Blue Hill, on a wet day. Ready? Here goes:


Porpidia crustulata, Concentric boulder lichen.
( Read more... )

I saw many partial fairy rings (fairy arcs?) in Florida. I saw lots of mushrooms in general, which I consider to be a huge factor in Florida's favor.

( Read more... )

At the end of the last Urban Nature Walk my friend dedhamoutdoors suggested we walk near Little Wigwam Pond (this is pronounced "little wiggum pond" in order to differentiate locals from carpetbaggers). A couple days later she said she found sundew plants there, and I said "sounds good! you're leading!" or words to that effect.

This first picture shows the group exploring life along the train tracks.

( Read more... )

Our last stop on the vacation was the Edison and Ford Winter Estates. I was keen to see the botanical laboratories and such, not so much the big houses of two rich men I don't particularly admire. Edison was a ruthless capitalist and elephant electrocutor and Ford was a noted anti-Semite. We saw some cool stuff there though--check out the tree behind this statue of Edison.

I made sure to show my dad the Oatmeal strip about Tesla, after we got back, just so you know.
( Read more... )

The first time you see a white ibis in Florida it's shocking and magical--aren't they African animals? Didn't the ancient Egyptians mummify them by the million? Then you see a flock of 20 in a drainage ditch. Then you realize you're seeing them basically anywhere there's water. Then, if you're me, you hand-feed them cat food at the zoo.

( Read more... )

If you've been following my journal, you know that the night before this picture was not good. The short of it is that I tried to visit with my friend and ran into two road closures due to one serious and one fatal traffic accident. This is the glorious sunset at Ventura Beach, complete with full moon. We stayed in Ventura because we were to spend the next day at the Channel Islands National Park. These islands are across the Santa Barbara Channel from LA (as opposed to within the English Channel, where the other Channel Islands are).

( Come to the island )

The view out my office window pretty much always includes juncos this time of year.


Yet another snapshot that looks like a horror movie still.


This is a stick blown down by the storm. The bluish green growth was there first, lichen soaking up sunlight while perched high in the tree. Then a wood-decay fungus invaded, eating the branch from inside, eventually producing the reddish-brown fruiting bodies fighting for space alongside the lichens. Weakened by the fungus, the branch fell to my curious hands.

Yesterday I went with @WildDedham and three other hikers for a ramble in the Dedham Town Forest. Most people, including Dedhamites, have never heard of the forest, and that's kind of a nice thing. Ideally it will receive some conservation attention before it becomes well-known to the public. Since it's fairly isolated and fenced in, there's very little in the way of invasive species there. One idea is to complete the fencing to create an exclosure keeping deer out, then plant other native plants (the ones like trillium, that deer tend to graze out of existence) and preserve the place as a native forest plant sanctuary, like Garden in the Woods.

Anyway, it was a pretty amazing place, and we stayed for three hours despite some of the worst mosquito activity I've ever experienced. The mushroom hunting was the best I've ever seen.

( 21 pictures )