Killdeer protest

Hey! Look what happens when you get too close to a Killdeer on her nest, before she breaks and runs off with a fake broken wing, trying to lure you away.
I never knew about those beautiful orange under-feathers before.

Moth parts, Hyalophora cecropia

So. This is a MALE (see previous post, "Cecropia moth"), and these are his claspers that he would have used if he ever found a willing female, but he never went to find one. I would find him each morning positioned like this. When I would move the container to get a better look, he would close this up.


The helpful crew at bugguide.net told me the females usually don't fly off, but instead stay put and point their magic pheromone-wand in the air to attract males. Not having ever seen a female Cecropia moth's pheromone organ, I thought that's what was going on here.

We don't know why he never flew off.

Cecropia moth

Hyalophora cecropia

My neighbor's kid got a Cecropia moth caterpillar at camp, and she raised it all summer in a plastic jug; they called me early this morning to tell me it had emerged. Everybody had to leave for the day, so I took it to my place. I spent all day with this dopey beauty, keeping an eye on it while it got itself organized; I wanted to be there when it decided to fly off, so I could let it out of its container when it was ready to leave, so it wouldn't bash up its wings fluttering around inside. Eventually (seven hours later) I started to lose patience and took it outside and took the lid off and encouraged it to crawl onto a stick, whereupon I lifted it out of the container, and took a million photos, and it still didn't do anything except rearrange its grip. So I propped the stick up in the container and left it alone.

Another three hours, now dark out, still there. It could be a female, I read they mostly sit around and put out pheromones, but the extra-large antennae say male, so who knows.

That fur! Those colors! I can't stand it!

 Male Cecropia moth

Update: with help from the friendly people at bugguide we got it all sorted out. It's a male (huge antennae), who wasn't acting like a typical male Cecropia moth by flying off to find a mate. I say it's a free country, and we'll all adjust.

Greenhouse foray

Here's some stuff I found during some regular visits to the campus greenhouse, in the middle of winter, when it was in the single digits for days. These were all taken in mid-January.

Here we find blooming Hoya javanica (common name "Shooting Star" for some crazy reason), cacao fruit, and Davallia fern (the underside of the leaves, showing the sori).

Well, no title needed HERE....

originally uploaded by Mycologista.

Found this tree on campus.

Grisette--Amanita vaginata--and Clavulinopsis laeticolor

"Grisette," Amanita vaginata.

 Common name refers to a French working-class woman, usually a part-time "flirt;" from "gris" (grey), the color of the cheap unbleached clothing they wore.
Anyway, these mushrooms have characteristic striated cap edges, a ring and a nice volva.
Bonus: this photo appears in Michael Kuo's latest book, "Mushrooms of the Midwest"!











Tiny orange coral, probably Clavulinopsis laeticolor.

Purple Russula & Fat Coral Mushroom

Lovely coral fungus, Ramaria sp.













Russula mariae (best guess). Russulas are not easy to identify without checking a lot of different features, none of which I was aware of when I found this.

Destroying Angel and Common Split-gill

Schizophyllum commune, "common split-gill" (very young ones)

Amanita bisporigera, "Destroying Angel." Most field guides call this A. virosa (or A. verna, depending on whether or not it turns yellow when KOH is applied), but those turn out to be European species. 

Amanita bisporigera's large ring on stem

Netted Rhodotus and old Laccaria

 

Netted Rhodotus, Rhodotus palmatus

Something else, I'd say an old Laccaria ochropurpurea

Boletes and Tremella fuciformis with Ophiostoma epigloeum

Lumpy Bolete
Dimpled cap points to Leccinum, maybe.
 














Another bolete, slowly bruising blue

Little jelly (about 1-1/2")

Tremella fuciformis.

See the little black spines? That's a parasitic fungus that only grows on T. fuciformis. I don't remember how I chanced upon that bit of information. I learned it as Ophiostoma epigloeum, apparently now it's Sporothrix epigloea.

Chanterelle motherlode!

HUGE field of chanterelles. Every orange spot you can see is another one. Goes to edge of frame.
Click for life-sized experience.
 

Black-footed polypore, Polyporus badius

Didn't know what these were for a while. They were pliable, and BIG. Underside white and smooth.
Polyporus badius.
These change appearance pretty dramatically over the course of their lives, very young ones are pale grey with a smooth rounded outline, from a distance they look like oyster mushrooms. They turn a dark reddish brown as they mature.

Laetiporus cincinnatus looks just like cooked chicken

 















NOT chicken, chicken of the woods MUSHROOM!

The hunt and capture of the chicken of the woods

Top two images are first day; bottom is next day.

Found this sitting there under a tree in a park, minding its own business (as far as I could tell). This very choice edible, this Laetiporus cincinnatus ("chicken of the woods"). Ran home to get positive ID (this is kind of funny now, as it is considered one of the easiest for beginners to ID. Now I would know in one second, but this really was in the very first month of my mushroom fascination, and the first one I'd ever seen). Positively identified it, it was quite a young specimen, went back the next day to nab it (after hardly being able to sleep, worrying that someone else would find it) and I was horrified to find the park swarming with hundreds of people for some event, was sure someone would have messed with it. But I could see this sucker from the parking lot, because it was so big, and so luminous. I snuck up on it and cut it. I don't understand why no one else seemed to have seen it, or kicked it, or picked it. I've got a picture of it from about 200' away, looking like a plastic milk bottle or a grocery bag in the distance.

As they get older they start to flare out into more shelf-like fans, and they get dry and woody, so you can really only eat the outer edges. Not my problem.

Although it seemed to be growing from the grass, it was actually attached to an underground root; these always grow on wood (not logs--trees with some life still in them).

Sauteed, not mushroomy at all, a completely new flavor. Great meaty texture.

Risotto w/ mushroom & gorgonzola--I died.

Did I mention it weighed over 2-1/4 pounds? Well, it did. And that's a small one--I've seen pictures of HUGE growths of them, "over 30 lbs," they say.

Coral Mushroom--Ramaria

Ramaria formosa. A beautiful coral mushroom, about 6" tall.

Purple gills--Laccaria ochropurpurea

This is one of the very first mushrooms I photographed. I didn't know what the hell I was looking at.

Aug. 29, 2009

It is Laccaria ochropurpurea, an old one. Young fresh ones have a cap like what you think a mushroom cap looks like.

This was the fateful day that I fell in love with mushrooms, my camera, and macro-nature photography. I was being taken to a spot where a friend had discovered chanterelles--as in, he had found some, didn't know what they were, looked them up, found they were choice edibles, picked some, ate some, and was taking me with him to pick more--and as we scouted them out, so many other mushrooms began to reveal themselves that I just didn't know how to act. They were everywhere. How many other times in my life of considering myself a nature-girl had I been hiking and somehow not seen them? Crazy. Just goes to show, you see what you're looking for.

I found many, many more of these throughout the season.

Below, why you shouldn't use your flash up close. Bleah.

Later I found there's a setting to back down the intensity of the flash (RYFM = Read Your F---ing Manual), but still, I've never been happy with the results. It seems to take away from the intimacy of the subject. It's a point-and-shoot camera, so my control is limited (not to disparage my camera--I love that thing--the worlds it has shown me--). But my future holds a different camera...