Parasols and Orbs

Back up north and its grim. It’s also really noticeable how quickly winter is approaching. Another 3 weeks and we’ll be back to walking around in the darkness.

Great to see the Garden Orb spiders are still busy

 

Garden Orb Spider
When the female has mated, her body becomes swollen with eggs. She builds a silken egg sac in which to lay the eggs and dedicates the rest of her life to protecting them. Unable to leave the eggs to hunt and feed, she dies in late autumn before her spiderlings hatch out in May of the following year

 

Young Parasol Mushroom

Young Parasol Mushroom

So far it looks like being a relatively good year for the local fungi. Unfortunately one of the drawbacks with living in a city is that there’s far too many people collecting fungi from every park or patch of green space. If they just kept to edible species it wouldn’t be too bad but instead they pick everything, sort them out in the car park and bin the 90% that shouldn’t be eaten. If any “foragers” come across this post please note the damage you’re doing. 

Young Parasol Mushroom
Parasol Mushroom at a slightly more advanced stage
Mature Parasol
A small section of one of several rings of Parasols
Fairy Inkcaps
Fairy Inkcaps

I was hoping to post a few photo’s of some other fungi but the foragers beat me to them.

Unknown bracket fungi
Not too sure about the identification of this particular bracket however its a spectacular sight on an old tree stump in the gardens of the Old Parsonage. I’ll have to another look next time I’m down there.

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