Birds, Bees, Fungi, and the Surprise!

Beautiful rains.

The only way to make it rain? I set out a Lego Aztec Minifigure to do a Raindance when the clouds moved in.

After the rain quit the first time, I put on boots and headed out to the creek bottom. It was just a joy to see wet leaves and water in the creek.

As I moved along through the tangled brush and briers I noticed some pinkish peachy colors on a log. On close inspection I was so excited!

Its common name is Wrinkled Peach Fungi, its scientific name is Rhodotus Palmtus. Yikes, I prefer the Wrinkled Peach name. It is so delicate and beautiful. And... ---> not edible.

This is the bottom side.

From the top.

I found some Oyster Mushrooms too.  The Slugs were really into them. 

On the same log in the creek bottom that had the beautiful peachy fungi, I found Bear Scat.

 Ewwww. The slugs were all over that too!

I went back home to get out of my hot clothes and report the bear scat findings. It wasn't exactly fresh. There has been a bear in the area for the past few summers [don't know if it is the same one or not]. However the bear uses the creek as a pathway to get from the berry patches on one neighbor's land to the wild apple trees on the west side of our land. 

Back home the humming birds were going nuts on the Bee Balm.

These two photos are a combo of shots. It is the same bird taken in rapid fire and composited so a person can admire how quick these guys are!

They spent a lot of time going to the Bee Balm and then back to the feeders. They really argue quite a bit!

My favorite bird is this guy, the Ruby Throated Hummer.

See his tongue???

8 seconds of him watching for intruders!

The bees were insane on the Bee Balm, but I didn't want to sit or stand in the hot sun and watch them so I opted for some shots of the Humming Birds instead.

HAH!

After I finished chores, an older Cadillac came creeping down our driveway. I was all set to give them a 'What For' thinking some old fart was lost or it was a pile of Jehovah's Witnesses.

It wasn't!

It was our friends from Missouri who had traveled north to see the Northern Lights and then were quite disappointed by their accommodations and the weather.

More on that after our weekend is done....

Fungi and Chocolate Slime Mold?

I'm slowly trying to catch up with things while at the same time limit my 'screen' time. My eyes seem to tire very easily. So I am doing a lot of things to keep the eye strain down to a dull roar.

Crab Spider waiting to pounce on a woolly aphid aka known as a Fairy Fly...

Club Fungi close up and then with an SD card next to it for getting an idea of how small this was! [If you click on the photo, you should be able to see it much larger.]

I'm pretty happy about finding the club fungi. This was the very first time I'd found it and actually knew to look for it.

Old slime mold that has dried up.

Slug on a rotting stump with tube slime mold.

Drum roll please...

Chocolate Tube Slime Mold.
It has other names but I thought this was the neatest.

I'll wrap up with just a pretty little fungi that reminded me of an umbrella. It had a blue tint to it and by the afternoon it had drooped and 'melted'. I imagine it belongs to the tiny ink cap family.

I need to get back out tomorrow morning before the heat and humidity get too intense and look around on the logs.

I did watch Fantastic Fungi on Netflix today and the photography and time lapse photography was quite beautiful.

It was pretty interesting and if you like fungi and mushrooms it might be worth your time.
It also had some interesting interviews regarding the use of the ingredients of the Psilocybin Mushroom and PTSD and depression.

There are rains and storms predicted for tomorrow night so I may be out hunting the strange world of slime molds and fungi again this weekend.