Last Monday I went for a walk … into Fairy Land. All along the side of the path … it must have continued for as much as mile … these fairy trees.
Fairy trees? Or one of the several brittlestem species of fungi? Photo 22nd Oct 2018
I’m not sure which of the brittlestem species but I believe they’re closely related to the inkcaps. Or is it just that they both have black spores.
My claim in the #2018picoftheweek challenge for Fairy Tale.
Fungi come in many colours: from mushroom-grey to pastel-pink via reds and purples, yellows and greens (though they’re less often seen). Last Monday’s walk began with this in fawnish-yellow …
A fawnish-yellow fungus, name unknown: Photo 22nd October 2018
and ended in pink …
Pink-capped fungi, name unknown: Photo 22nd October 2018
Ah, aren’t they pretty!
As Marriots Way leaves the Norfolk village of Attlebridge on its remaining ten miles that culminate at the walls of Norwich, it passes through a pine plantation to one side and a chestnut woods to the other. It’s kick-up leaves time!
Marriots Way early on a misty morning: 22 October 2018
So I arrived home after Monday’s walk with thoughts of a hot coffee, a hot meal, and a warm bath … to utter darkness. Not a glimmer of light. What!
Yikes, my light lilac wall turns pink in the candlelight: 22nd October 2018
A phone call later—oh, it’s a power cut, and the power would be off at least through to midnight. How serendipitous! I used the power-cut to fulfill the #2018picoftheweek: After Dark
This week’s walk, ten miles along Marriots Way, yielded loads of the trooping toadstools. And these little beauties ….
A family of fungi raise their funnels through pine loppings : 22 Oct 2018
I was particularly taken with the colour-combo here, that delicate apricot amongst the fading green (almost blue) of the dying pine.
And then there was this. The one, the only one (lo, where have they all gone?) …
A fly agaric pushes its head through the compacted grit of the wayside bank: 22 October 2018
In previous years this stretch of Marriots Way has been totally speckled with these bright and poisonous hallucigenic red-caps. I put their scarcity down to the weather.
There is a smell that pervades the damp woods at this time of year. And those with keen noses are liable to stumble upon one of Nature’s naughty secrets.
One of the easiest fungi to recognise. The Stinkhorn: Photo 8 October 2018
Though it’s called a ‘stinkhorn’, I don’t find the smell at all offensive. For me, it’s redolent of the autumnal woodland.
Stinkhorn smothered in its stinky slime: Photo 8 October 2018
The stinkhorn uses the smell of its slime to attract flies which then, slimed-up, carry away its spores. This one thinks it’s Adam. But Adam had a fig leaf, not a flimsy fern.
Oops, embarrassing: Photo 8 October 2018
Easy to see with this flaccid specimen how spongelike the stinkhorn’s shaft. Well, if you’re going to mimic, you may as well mimic all the way.
Nature is nature; no intent to offend.
After the rain, the fungi appear. But that’s not the focus of this photo. It’s that myriad of tiny waterdrops.
The raindrops on the grass seem like miniature mimics of the mushroom: photo 24 September 2018
#2018picoftheweek: Liquid
As to the mushroom, I almost stood on it, so small and lost in the long grass.
By popular request, two photos from yesterday’s walk. And as you can see, yesterday the sky rained.
An inkcap, beginning to ‘ink’: photo 15th Oct 2018
Three mucky versions of the above: photo 15th October 2018
I make no excuse for posting another fungi photo. The contrasting colours of the clustered fungi and the flint-like flakes of the pine stump rushed at my eyes and grabbed me.
Fungi, pine and heather at Waveney Forest: Photo 8th October 2018
Waveney Forest rises above the extensive Haddiscoe-Fritton grazing marshes. Even so, an unexpected view of abandoned windmills (I can count three, plus the C20th replacement).
Abandoned mills on the Waveney; Photo 8th October 2018
Also unexpected was this inlet of silver birches, all lopped off, looking like upstanding pencils, with their inner red bark ghosting through.
Pencil-like birches: Photo 8th October 2018
And the unexpected star of the day …
Earth Stars: Photo 8th October 2018
The first time I’d seen an earthstar.
No, not the Sondheim musical that cleverly combines plots from fairy tales by Brothers Grimm and Charles Perrault. And neither the book by John Yorke that explores ‘How Stories Work and Why We Tell Them’. Though I recommend both of those. No, I mean Tyrrels Wood.
A wooden bridge in Tyrrels Wood; Photo 10 Sept 2018
#2018picoftheweek: Wooden
Tyrrels Wood, two miles south of Long Stratton (a tiny town that straddles the old Roman road to London, now the A140) was first recorded in 1251. Today it belongs to the Woodland Trust and is open to all.
I visited the woods back in September. Too early for fungi, though I did find some. And too early for autumnal colours. If time permits I’ll visit again, perhaps in November.
