Fall Fungal Foray, etc.

 Late summer through early autumn is a great time of year to be searching for mushrooms, a.k.a. fungi. Being the 'fun guy' that I am (joke :-), I spend a fair bit of time looking for ones to photograph. Recent moisture can have a big effect on fungi. What one sees attached to a log or growing out of the ground, is really just the fruiting body of the fungus, where spores are released and carried by slight breezes to another spot at which it can grow. Important as these above ground features are, they are only a very small part of this plant. The immense part of it is underground, in the form of tiny but very extensive threads of mycelia that collectively are absolutely enormous! A rich forest ground cover is jam-packed full of mycelia, which connect many other plants, including trees root systems, and are one of the main forms of energy that allows the richness of the forest to flourish. And they just keep expanding every year!

By comparison, a corn or soybean field growing next to a woodland is so depauperate.  The destruction of the forest which once was there, as well as the annual plowing/cultivation, has destroyed the beneficial mycelia, and the only way those crops can produce is if the farmer pours on extensive amounts of man-made fertilizers, a lot of which will end up in the local creek systems, eventually ending up in the local rivers/lakes, and be the main source of our drinking water. Yuk! And that is an important, but unfortunate topic for another blog post.

In the meantime, I want to focus on some of the fungi I have recently noted and photographed. Here are a few, all of which have been found locally, mostly at Rondeau.

One of the most impressive ones I have found quite recently is one called Chicken-of-the-woods. I have seen this species annually, and it is always worthy of note, but on this occasion about a month ago, I came across by far the most impressive example of it. I took this photo with my phone as it was raining, and did not enhance this image a bit, other than to slightly crop it. 

Some others, in no particular order are:

Conifer Mazegill

Next is one somewhat similar to the first one, and it is called Conifer Chicken-of-the-woods. It is not common in this area, but can be found on a decomposing conifer log. This one was on a rotting log of White Pine.

Clustered Bonnet

One thing that is helpful in determining what species a fungus is, is to examine the underside. Some fungi have small holes, such as this next one....

Chicken Fat Mushroom

....while others have gills. Since it is just the fruiting part of the fungus, breaking a piece off and examining the underside will have very minimal effect on the fungus.

Burnt Sugar Milky

Crown-tipped Coral Fungus

Next is one that is seldom seen, and that is just as well. It is called Golden Oyster Mushroom, native to Europe and Asia. However it has been cultivated in North America due to its apparent edibility, and no doubt spores of it have been distributed throughout much of at least eastern North America. It decomposes the wood of many native tree species, and apparently has displaced some of the naturally occurring fungal species. I have only seen it on one occasions, about a year ago.

Northern Honey Fungus

Orange Earthtongue

One of the very first species of mushroom I photographed decades ago is this next one: Orange Mycena. I see it annually now, and this was photographed in September.

Next is a type of bracket fungus, called Orange Polypore

Oyster Mushroom

Again, looking at the underside to determine whether there are gills or holes is beneficial.

Next are a couple of examples of a Pear-shaped Puffball, some of which are opening up to allow the spored to disperse.

Earthball

Next is a type of the Amanita family, a family known for its harmful, even deadly, qualities. I should add that as interested in mushrooms as I am, there are only a couple of types that I have ever eaten from the wild: Giant Puffball and one of the Morels. Even though I took a course on Mycology at University and have a couple of excellent books to help identify them, there are too many things to consider before even thinking of eating them.

Small Funnel-veil Amanita

Trooping Crumble Cap

Next is a type of slime mould known as Tubifera magna

Vermilion Cap

The next two show a variation in the one called White Jelly Fungus

And lastly, one called Witch's Cap. Not sure who comes up with the names......

In other news, just because it is of interest to many birder readers, I managed to catch up with a Red-necked Phalarope at the Blenheim Sewage Lagoons...

 ...and just a day or two ago, that of a young Purple Gallinule which had been found at the Keith McLean Conservation Lands just outside of Rondeau. At times it was out in the open and relatively close at hand.

However when I first saw it, it was tucked back behind some vegetation, still identifiable, but not what I had hoped to work with. Fortunately for me, and many others who were out looking for it, it did eventually come out in the open and was busily nipping of bits of something on the underside of the lotus leaves!

 On another note, some of the long-time readers of Nature Nuggets will have realized that I don't produce as many as I used to. Of course when my dear wife Marie passed away, that was a significant adjustment and I cut back on blog posts as well as other things. However in early June of 2025, some friends suggested I start an additional blog, sharing some of the life-changing things I had experienced and learned from, especially in the previous few years. And so my new blog, entitled Life Is A Journey, began. I now have 47 posts on that blog sharing the many ups and downs of life, some of which were devastating, and others resulting in some significant blessings. Nature continues to be part of the story in some of them. If you are interested in some of my background that makes me who I am, check it out if you like. The first post can be found at this link: and progresses in bits and pieces through the decades of my (and Marie's) lives. It is also mentioned on the lower right-hand-side of this blog, in the category of Blogs I Follow. As I continue through some of the ups and downs of life, nature will likely be still an important part of it, and one I have in mind for a post in the near future is about spiders!

 

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Waterbirds continue, Fungi and some backyard wildlife

 The autumn migration continues, with a few more northern warblers filtering southward, as well as shorebird numbers and diversity continuing to build. At the local sewage lagoons, the species and numbers vary, but the lagoons are productive, as evidenced by a good number of 'out-of-town' birders checking them out in addition to us locals.

One of the highlights of recent days was the single day sighting of a Red-necked Phalarope. I didn't get to the lagoons that day, but went the following day. There was at least a dozen birders over the course of the next day, all with the hopes of encountering this rare shorebird. Unfortunately there has been no sign of the phalarope by anyone since, but it is relatively early in the autumn migration so another one might show and stay around. A highlight of this outing, however, was to see my first of the year Baird's Sandpiper.

Short-billed Dowitchers, a shorebird with a long bill, but on average shorter than its Long-billed relative, are also appearing as expected.

There are lots of the diminutive Least Sandpiper around....

....as well as Lesser Yellowlegs....

...and Semipalmated Sandpipers, and others.

Sandhill Cranes continue to be around wetlands, as well as recently harvested fields nearby. At this time of year one might expect to see a third or fourth one, as a family group. It is more likely that this pair was unsuccessful raising any young this year, since there were no young accompanying them.

With the amount of precipitation in recent weeks, it will come as no surprise to see a profusion of fruiting fungal bodies around in the leaf litter or emanating from rotting wood, some of which are quite colourful or at least distinctive. These images were all taken during one or more of my quite recent orchid forays at Rondeau.

Coral Fungus

This next one is a member of the Gomphus genus, without a common name. It might be a relative rarity on the North American landscape, but species identification is yet to be determined.

Next is a member of the Waxcaps group.

And this next one is a member of the Deer Mushrooms group.

This last one is known as Dead Moll's Fingers, a member of the Xylaria genus

There are things of interest much closer to home, which is great for my photographic itch when I don't wander too far. Marie spotted this caterpillar busily trying to get through the grasses. It is an American Dagger Moth.

In the pollinator part of our community garden, the Great Black Digger Wasps are busy....

...as are the various species of wasps and wasp-like critters. The one in the photo below is a member of the Umbrella Paper Wasp group.

A young Short-horned Grasshopper posed for a single photo before leaving for parts unknown.

This Tachinid Fly, which is hard to identify to species with a single photo, was keeping an eye on my camera with ring flash and macro lens coming closer and closer.

Much easier to get photos of was this Giant Swallowtail, once considered an uncommon and even a potential species at risk not that long ago.

Nesting season is still ongoing. We have had a pair of Mourning Doves building a nest just a few metres outside our living room window. They didn't start until after the first of August, and the female is now sitting on the nest almost all the time. Presumably there are one or more eggs. In past years, Mourning Doves have attempted to nest in the same location, but without success. Their nests are flimsy structures, and they could never get any nesting material to stay in place. This pair has found a way, and we will be keeping an eye on how it develops over the next few weeks.

As an update regarding my book 'Life on a Sandspit':

 It is now available at more locations, including:

-Friends of Rondeau bookstore in the Rondeau Visitor Centre;

-Bayview Market, just outside the park gates;

-Mindful, an interesting store in Blenheim at the main intersection of Talbot Trail and Marlborough St

-The Book Brothers, on King St E in Chatham

-via the Sydenham Field Naturalist web site, at https://www.sydenhamfieldnaturalists.ca/publications/

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