Never mind the pink skies..

 

It is important when visiting the park at sunrise

Not to get distracted from the main task at hand (or paw)...

Happy Nature Friday friends!

Oh and we have a special bonus today - a late season fungal cascade spotted on an old beech stump in the woods by Banchory last week. Who can tell where the mushrooms end and the fallen leaves begin?

And just one more thing.

Can you believe we saw this solitary rhododendron flower in bloom (near where we saw the fungus)? In November!

Thanks once again to our dear friends, the LLB Gang, for hosting the blog hop. Gail and I were so very sorry to hear the recent sad news about Arty. He was an adorable worldwide superstar, a character without peer, and his immense contribution to Blogville will not be forgotten. We are sending Rosy, Jakey, Sunny and their Mama and Daddy more love and hugs as they come to terms with their loss.

A compromise post

 

Sometimes I think I understand my readership better than my human does. 

She said I should put a bunch of her photos of mushrooms in various states of decay on today's post, but I just know you'd rather see pictures of me happily trotting through the forest last week while Gail had her camera mostly pointed towards the ground.

Since compromise is at the heart of any good relationship, we agreed to feature both me and the fungi.

But I was right (about which pictures you'd prefer) wasn't I?

PS from Gail: It's been a relatively good week with Bertie.

Happy Nature Friday! And thanks to our lovely LLB Gang friends for once again hosting the blog hop.

Fungi and ferns on Nature Friday

Once again, I'm delighted to be taking part in the Nature Friday blog hop, as ever hosted by my dear friends Arty, Jakey and Rosy. 

Today we are going to focus on mushrooms.

Just before my discovery of Dark Matter (see Monday's post), I had enjoyed a romp around the pinewoods at the base of Scolty Hill.

We've endured an uncommonly wet autumn here in NE Scotland, which means that the fungi at least have been having a ball. (Gail has banned me from using fungi/fun guy puns in this post...)

Allow me to introduce you to some of the many different species still popping up amid the ferns and mosses, under the dark forest canopy.

Let's see, what do we have here?

I do believe these are Angel's Wings. Gosh, there must be a lot of grounded cherubs around at the moment...

Oh and look, here's some Yellow Stagshorn, providing a welcome burst of colour in gloomy November.

And these next ones are, we believe, Velvet Shanks, an edible species, although Gail says we would need to check the identification very carefully before trying them for supper, as there is a similar-looking, but very poisonous type of mushroom.

Less attractive in shape and colour, we have Common Funnel mushrooms, which are, er guess what, common, and also funnel shaped (kind of).

And finally, a top a mossy boulder, we spotted these dainty wee things sprouting among the pine needles.

Lest you imagine that Gail and I have become overnight experts in different types of fungus, we must 'fess up right away and admit that our nice friend Carol, budding mushroom-ologist (or whatever the right word is) helped out with the identification. And if anyone thinks they know the names of the little and skinny stemmed ones above, please leave a comment.

Meanwhile, I have some important sniffing work to do...