Saturday, August 20, 2011

Mushroom Mania!

It's been so rainy and moist the last week or two , that I guess it was no surprise to see lots of mushrooms today, but I was struck by their variety and beauty!

The lower gardens were unusually quiet today. All I managed to see were a myriad of very wet and sorry looking song sparrows, a blue jay, an oriole, robins and mockingbirds.

The upper gardens were a little more productive. I ran into Mary Lou and Tess, and eventually Bev. Mary Lou and I had some excellent sightings of female yellow throats, female yellow warbler and best of all a confirmed sighting of a Nashville warbler! A red-eyed vireo was heard but not seen. Otherwise it was mostly catbirds, female red-winged blackbirds, song sparrows, goldfinches, a house wren, cardinal and a peewee calling from the adjacent woods. Mary Lou introduced me to the "puffball" an amazing mushroom type fungus, that is basically a white ball shape with no stem that comes in a variety of sizes from small to very large! Apparently they are edible and quite tasty when sauteed in butter.


We were hoping to see the herons in the pond, but it was not meant to be. Down by the river were titmice and lots of chickadees as well as a flicker.

The meadow is beautiful right now with cosmos in white, pink and dark pink. Wouldn't it be great if they came back next year?

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