Fungi Foray in the Foret de Preuilly...

A great way to spend an autumn afternoon...

More about this tomorrow when we've finished scrubbing our hands with soap and hot water. (Trust Elizabeth to pick a Death Cap!).....

Forest Fungi

One of my favourite subjects to photograph is fungi. There are so many shapes, colours and stages to capture but the one endearing quality is that they all stand still, which is always a plus with me!

Our walk on Sunday through the Forest of Preuilly was punctuated with pauses to get a shot of yet another specimen. Here are a few of them which I hope you'll enjoy...

I don't profess to be able to name many fungi, so I'll play fair and name none of them! Suffice it to say they looked wonderful in the dappled sunlight!

 The following couple have a euro coin on top of them to give an idea of scale

 

 

And finally, its always good to get a different angle on the subject...

I guess I'm something of a fungi fanatic.. but hey! there are far worse things to be!

Fungal foray

As the early signs of Autumn appear one more stage has been added to the task of mowing the lawn. Unless we want a lawn resembling the aftermath of a foam party, the  mushrooms need to be collected first...And by mushrooms, we mean lots of them!

Yesterday's crop filled two large garden tubs.  We added the drinks can in the photo below, to give an idea of scale.

Now, if we could be sure that these are only common field mushrooms I would be making soup till it came out of our ears but we can't be sure - despite several excellent books on the subject. There are so many 'lookalikes' and the consequences of eating the wrong ones can be so severe that it just isn't worth the risk.

......Although, looking at them, it does seem a shame!
If  anyone out there has any advice and would be happy to share it, we would be very grateful. Otherwise, at the risk of throwing away the main ingredient of mushroom soup, it's all going to stew on the compost heap!!

A walk in the woods

On Sunday we went for a walk in our local woods and as you would expect at this time of year the fungi put on a stunning show....

We have not really the time to go through and name them all but if you are an expert in this field please feel free to give us the names and we will add them for future use. Thanks..