It was a foggy morning in the second week of this year's, mostly sunny, November.
I went for a walk ...
... to the small peninsula next to the port of my hometown ...
... with just a few wide, generic shots in mind ... all about foggy seascape and boats floating in that dreamlike atmosphere.
It was supposed to be a short walk ...
... because the fog usually doesn't last long ...
... just an hour or so ... if you are lucky ...
... but this time ...
... it was here to stay ... almost until noon ...
... and also ...
... I kept finding interesting mushrooms ...
... and various small, bedewed details ...
... along the way ...
... all very photogenic stuff ...
... that has to be explored ...
... and documented ...
... very thoroughly.
Even later ...
... as the fog was lifting ...
... with so many colorful mushrooms ...
... scattered all around ...
... I just couldn't leave.
There wasn't much I could do ...
... to break the spell ...
... so I spent the whole day ...
... trapped ...
... in this enchanted place ...
... while the fog ...
... the light ...
... and the overall atmosphere ...
... where constantly shifting ...
... between long moments of gloom ...
... and sudden outbursts of golden sun - power.
This pretty large Volvopluteus gloiocephalus mushroom was photographed early in the morning, near the archeological remains of the Roman villa from the 1st century ... you can see a fragment of its wall in the upper left corner ... and the mushroom on the following shot ...
... another mushroom of the same kind, growing in the same area ... just a few meters further, practically in the same place ... was photographed in the evening, at the end of my long shooting day, with just a bit of mist in the distance, around the horizon.
With this shot I'm back at the beginning. In the early morning fog. Here you can see a small, not completely developed Agaricus xanthodermus...
... one of the very few different mushrooms in that part of the peninsula ...
... clearly dominated by Volvopluteus gloiocephalus.
Here is another Agaricus species ... the pretty large, meaty and completely edible Agaricus augustus ... while on the following photograph ...
... you can see another Volvopluteus gloiocephalus portrait. Hope you like it ... because ...
... you'll see plenty of them in the post :D
The thing could as well be called " THOUSAND FACES OF VOLVOPLUTEUS GLOIOCEPHALUS "
Meanwhile ...
... someone was jogging along the main fishing dock ...
... the Grey Heron (Ardea cinerea) was calmly standing on a small island formed by some rocks in the shallows ...
... the sun ended up caught ...
... in the center of this pretty large web, a masterful construction made by some invisible spider ...
... and I unexpectedly saw a small grasshopper nymph on that cold, humid morning. It was a surprising find covered with many jewel - like droplets.
These lovely mushrooms ... that look a bit like flowers ...
... are the Armillaria mellea. They always grow on wood. Usually on rotting stumps or at the base of trunks on the living trees ... but also on the roots when they are near the surface, so sometimes it can look like they appeared directly from the soil if the roots are hidden by the vegetation ... like in this, slightly confusing case.
A few steps further, I stumbled upon these Psathyrella candolleana. To make the things even more confusing, they were deployed around a rotting stump of some long gone tree. These mushrooms never grow on wood, but it looks like they do at first glance. Only after a better look under the surrounding vegetation it was clear that they don't grow on, but only around that stump.
This series of deceptive moments ...
... made me look at the sky ...
... and the fishing boats ...
... across the bay ...
... in the hopeless attempt ...
... to clear my mind by watching the fog.
When I brought the focus back on smaller details ...
... with my eyes and lens ready to explore the meadow ...
... I first noticed an exhausted crane fly covered with tiny droplets ...
... then this small spider ...
... hanging on his horizontal, multi - leveled web ...
... and yet another Volvopluteus gloiocephalus ... a nice addition to the massive, bizarre collection of Volvopluteus gloiocephalus portraits stored inside this post.
The thought of this easily avoidable exaggeration ...
... that I somehow just couldn't avoid ...
... made me look at the sky again ...
... and contemplate the free will ...
... for a minute or so.
While walking around in this state of mind ...
... I found some interesting fungi on the surrounding trees.
Phaeolus schweinitzii is the name of this species. It's considered a fungal plant pathogen on these pines. While I was taking these photographs ...
... and a bit later ...
... with the eyes high on the sky again ...
... I was captured by the beautiful and very dynamic ...
... always changing light, shimmering through the overall atmosphere ...
... and that immersion made me think - what a wonderful world!
It was a powerful, although not very original thought that erased all the amalgamated confusion that came before it ...
... and it was a melodic thought as well, it came in the raspy Louis Armstrong's voice ... I mean, not his real voice, but more like his voice as I remember it from the TV.
My gaze was drifting back and fort along the mythical horizontal line between the sky and all the rest ...
... until it stopped at some Hotels across the inlet. They were all closed, so I decided to take a look at what's below me, in my immediate surroundings.
I noticed this elegant parasol down there ...
... it looked like one of those little cocktail decorations typical for beach bars and summer terraces ...
... lost and out of place in these gloomy autumnal circumstances.
There was another one nearby ... with an imaginary triangle cut out of its perfectly circular shape ... it looked a lot like some small fungi Pac-Man, because of that missing part.
The little egret (Egretta garzetta) was patrolling the shallows under those hotels ...
... while the day was entering its golden age ...
... brought by an energetic outburst of sunlight through a thinned out curtain of mist ...
... that transformed the bay.
It was late in the morning when I photographed this trio of Macrolepiota mastoidea mushrooms ...
... and everything around me was a joy to behold.
On the bed of needles, under the pines, I found a solitary Agaricus xanthodermus ...
... and this beautiful red Russula ... probably the Russula emetica, but I'm not sure about the species ... I took a few shots ...
... and continued to the sea.
Some spider has built a large web on the coastal plants.
The tide was pretty low ... and this sea cucumber ended up stranded on the rocks.
It was getting warmer, both in colors and in temperature.
The world around me started to feel comfortable like my own house, like the best of all possible worlds ... or some other, similarly exaggerated thing.
Some hours later ...
... in the early afternoon ...
... after the long picnic by the sea ... with some sandwiches ...
... and coffee in the thermos flask ...
... I continued to wander around the central part of this little park in the bay ...
... and here ...
... I found quite a few interesting mushrooms ...
... so finally ... I'll be able to deliver more fungi - less foggy, rambling thoughts in this section of the post :D
The Clavarioids of the Phaeoclavulina curta species on the last three photographs, look a bit like some corals or sponges uncovered by the low tide.
This is the Lactarius sanguifluus ...
... a very tasty edible mushroom.
It releases red, blood - like liquid when cut or broken. This is very helpful for the determination of this species because the color of these mushrooms can vary through various combinations, from olive green to vivid orange.
Red colored Russulas ...
... were very numerous ...
... and quite photogenic ...
... so I took quite a few portraits.
This one was posing with another, very different mushroom ... a completely different species ...
... and they looked like a very lovely pair.
This other one was posing with an ear of some dry grass leaning on its cap ...
... creating a beautiful, memorable detail.
I found also this small, decorative caterpillar ...
... on one of these red caps.
This is some different, less colorful kind of Russula ...
... Russula adusta is the name of the species ...
These mushrooms are pretty large and robust ...
... and although not particularly distinctive or beautiful, they still look fairly cool.
This mushroom looks like the exact opposite ...
... small and elegant ... very distinctive ... and colorful ...
... unfortunately, I have no idea about the name of the species.
Here you can see another one of those red colored Russulas, hidden in the intricate vegetation under some shrubs. After taking this shot ...
... I found a minuscule, interestingly curved mushroom there ...
... on some fallen twig.
This leafhopper was slowly crawling along some dry straw.
Some minutes later ... and not many steps further ...
... I encountered this Agaricus augustus ...
... and a group of Mycena epipterygia.
I found these small flies, some kind of midges ...
... on and around this plant - the Silene latifolia.
They looked kind of sleepy ...
... and were easy to photograph. The interesting species on the following photograph ...
... is the Coprinopsis picacea. These delicate mushrooms don't last long ...
... and here ...
... you can see how it looks when they start to dissolve.
This fly, I don't know the name of the species, was photographed nearby ... and then ...
... some hours later ... I found these interesting circles ...
... on some relatively large leaves.
And so ... step by step ...
... mushroom after mushroom ...
... the late afternoon ...
... turned into evening.
The mist started to appear in the distance ...
... on the horizon ... I was walking around the area where a luxurious Roman villa stood once upon a time ...
... in the place ...
... where this post started ...
... with a considerably different atmosphere ...
... but ...
... with the same mushrooms ...
... these pretty large Volvopluteus gloiocephalus.
As always in these long autumnal ramblings on HIVE, the photographs are my work - THE END.