As late August arrived, we planned a family camping weekend. It was a cloudy and wet weekend at times making it more challenging to get out and photograph nature. While hanging around the campsite preparing breakfast, I started wondering around and came across these small mushrooms popping out of a mossed covered log laying across the forest floor. Looking through the camera lens, the lighting was very nice creating a soft image perfect for these delicate little fungi.
The next weekend brought a trip to the North Shore to help my daughter move in to her new place for the winter as school gets back underway. While in the area, I got up to watch the sunrise which ended up being a bit dismal. After the light began to spread across the landscape I headed for a nearby trail to explore the north woods. Walking all alone into these beautiful trees, I came across a large rotting stump. Examining closer I could see coral mushrooms. And then red capped mushrooms. Continuing to walk around I found brown mushrooms. So much to capture all in one piece of wood.
This little red capped fungi stood out against the more natural tones of the forest floor bringing fantastic color on such a small scale. It was such a picture perfect mushroom to enjoy. Walking to the other side of this stump, coral mushrooms were coming out of the ground. These are definitely one the most unique mushrooms I’ve seen. I remember reading about them in one of my magazines but had never seen one to know a mushroom like this existed. A few years later I finally saw one and now I find them from time to time enjoying it each time with their interesting branching structure. I had a saltwater tank with coral in it and these always bring back positive memories of that aquarium.
The first coral mushroom I saw was fairly large but in a difficult spot to get a nice photo of it. Searching the area I saw this one surrounded by birch branches bringing a little more interesting background to the photo. When I look over this picture, I always think it should have water droplets hanging off of it to soften up the image and make it more inviting. There was no rain that morning so it wasn’t an option. Moving on to one more of the fungus growing out of this decomposing tree stump, I wanted to show a different moss surrounding these mushrooms. These were fun to capture because there are several stages of opening present from the rounded to top to becoming flattened to having a cup forming in the top of the most open stem. This brown was a nice contrast to the brilliant green moss growing around them completing the earthy tones often associated with a forest in late summer.
It was getting to be time to rejoin my family for breakfast and one more day of exploring together before needing to return home. My little adventure had been a successful one with some great mushrooms along a beautiful north woods trail near Lake Superior and I was ready to get back to my car. Almost…. While walking back towards my car I kept stopping just to take in these surroundings and the plants making up the woods. At one point I bent over to examine some plant leaves and berries growing from them when I looked closer towards the ground and noticed a bright yellow mushroom. I had seen one of these earlier but it was not in great shape. A little too old to capture. As I continue to get closer to this one, there was a snail climbing around it. Watching it for awhile, I moved around with the camera to get an interesting picture as it worked its way over the top of this next meal. That was really fun to witness and a great send off from the trail as I returned to my vehicle to meet my family.
