Today and yesterday I got a job-hunt related rejection letter both
days. I also followed up a speculative CV and ordered a book about how
to get into ecology. So I guess it balances out, right?
Outside of that, I decided that yesterday would be a fantabulous day to go out and brush up my ID skills. And it was a fantastic wander... until the heavens broke, the thunder came and even my underwear got properly soaked. Mind, my DMs kept my socks dry, so at least there's that. That'll teach me to believe that the weather will hold.
Until I got properly rained on, I'd been having a good little walk. Not only do I have a new GPS app on my phone that allows me to map things, but my mushroom ID was picking up. So, because I quite like blackberries and raspberries, I mapped out an area of accessible bushes using the app plus Bing maps. So if anyone heads out to Dyson Woods...
http://binged.it/PANoHn -- and it's exportable to KML and a few other formats, so you can actually look at it in GIS applications if needed. How cool is that? In the mean time, I'll be taking a wander and getting some blackberries for blackberry gin. None of the few raspberries I did find actually made it home (again). But they were *so* tasty...
Outside of that, I saw two different types of fungus. One is Turkey Tail (Trametes versicolor) that was growing on a felled silver birch. The growth was quite young so it felt velvety. There were several pores per millimetre on the underside, which was entirely white. The fungus is listed as "inedible" on several sites. Which is fair, because it feels leathery and unpalatable:
The underside is a proper white colour on these particular Turkey Tails.
I also saw a Common Earthball (Scleroderma citrinum). Scleroderma citrinum literally means hard-skinned and lemon in colour, more or less, which isn't far off the mark as they feel almost rock hard to the touch:
This little mushroom is also called pigskin poison puffball and isn't a puffball at all -- it's an earthball. Puffballs have a single opening in the top through which the spores disperse; earthballs prefer to break up and release their spores. Common earthballs have black spores and it's worth noting that the spores may cause crying, conjunctivitis, runny nose and nosebleeds in some people -- and you'd definitely not want to be eating them. Gastrointestinal distress is the term used. Even that's too colourful!
And then... there was rain. All of the rain. So, I may head out that way tomorrow as long as it's not, you know, a proper deluge. My ID books hate water.
Outside of that, I decided that yesterday would be a fantabulous day to go out and brush up my ID skills. And it was a fantastic wander... until the heavens broke, the thunder came and even my underwear got properly soaked. Mind, my DMs kept my socks dry, so at least there's that. That'll teach me to believe that the weather will hold.
Until I got properly rained on, I'd been having a good little walk. Not only do I have a new GPS app on my phone that allows me to map things, but my mushroom ID was picking up. So, because I quite like blackberries and raspberries, I mapped out an area of accessible bushes using the app plus Bing maps. So if anyone heads out to Dyson Woods...
http://binged.it/PANoHn -- and it's exportable to KML and a few other formats, so you can actually look at it in GIS applications if needed. How cool is that? In the mean time, I'll be taking a wander and getting some blackberries for blackberry gin. None of the few raspberries I did find actually made it home (again). But they were *so* tasty...
Outside of that, I saw two different types of fungus. One is Turkey Tail (Trametes versicolor) that was growing on a felled silver birch. The growth was quite young so it felt velvety. There were several pores per millimetre on the underside, which was entirely white. The fungus is listed as "inedible" on several sites. Which is fair, because it feels leathery and unpalatable:
The underside is a proper white colour on these particular Turkey Tails.
I also saw a Common Earthball (Scleroderma citrinum). Scleroderma citrinum literally means hard-skinned and lemon in colour, more or less, which isn't far off the mark as they feel almost rock hard to the touch:
This little mushroom is also called pigskin poison puffball and isn't a puffball at all -- it's an earthball. Puffballs have a single opening in the top through which the spores disperse; earthballs prefer to break up and release their spores. Common earthballs have black spores and it's worth noting that the spores may cause crying, conjunctivitis, runny nose and nosebleeds in some people -- and you'd definitely not want to be eating them. Gastrointestinal distress is the term used. Even that's too colourful!
And then... there was rain. All of the rain. So, I may head out that way tomorrow as long as it's not, you know, a proper deluge. My ID books hate water.
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