Mushrⓞⓞm Scavenge!

It has come to my attention that there is indeed a secret world within our world, that I have never seen before. The world of mushrooms. 

Never did I think that I would be participating, let alone loving, the activity of mushroom foraging. But nonetheless I got to experience first hand what this interesting activity was all about. And yes it is an activity that appears to have been going on for some time now. Just look at some of these websites!

http://www.fungitobewith.org/

http://www.myctor.org/

http://www.nsmushrooms.org/2011-mushroom-foray/

http://www.fungiforays.co.uk/

These 'mushroom walks' consist of groups of people armed with baskets, walking through the woods collecting mushrooms they find. These walks are usually lead by a guide who knows a thing or two about mushrooms and educates the group on the different mushroom species, names, origins and whether they are edible or not.

 Here our professor is informing us on how to pick mushrooms and how to be conservative! Our guide is the man with the camera, Chris Earley, The Arboretum's Interpretive Biologist and Education Coordinator with his honours undergraduate degree (BSc.) in Zoology from the University of Guelph and a keen naturalist interested primarily in wildlife and natural history.

Camouflage to the Extreme! 
Before our walk even began, our guide made a fascinating discovery!

Behold, the BIRD-POO CATERPILLAR
>You have got to be kidding me right!!!???<

This little guy is the master of disguise and disgust. He literally fools his enemies by pretending to be bird poo.
However, despite his ugliness now, he will turn into North America's Biggest Butterfly
The Swallowtail Butterfly!

 

(image taken from google)

Into the Woods We Go

Our First Find

It's a Dandy


 Finds of Mine

 HA, Love this one.. nature was trying to hide it from me.. but I found it!

 Is the large knife overkill?

 Fact: This is not a mushroom
(sneeky sneeky)

Mushroom Power

Here is a video of our professor, Diane Borsato successfully removing a mushroom from it's tree-home, despite the fight it put up!

>After about an hour and fifteen minutes of scavenging we all returned to the place we started<

Baskets of Joy

Basket of fruit mushrooms

Once we had all arrived back, we began to place our findings out on our professor's nice white car hood! Here we were all pleasantly surprised at the array of wondrous fungi we had found!

I absolutely love this photograph! not just because of the wonderful array of mushrooms but because our professor is comparing 'real mushrooms' to a student's tattoo of mushrooms. Epic.


A Surprising Find

One student actually stumbled upon a animal skull, later to be identified by our trusty mushroom guide as belonging to a raccoon.

Skull Education

Here is a short clip of Chris educating us about the raccoon skull!


Some VERY Interesting Mushrooms We Found
Check it out!!

 Dead Man's Finger

 Poisonous Dappling

 Witch's Butter

 Pink Chewing Gum Mushroom

 Stinkhorn Egg

 I can't remember the name of this one.. but I am sure it's great like all the others

I never knew the name of this one but look... a slug friend!


Mushroom Education

Here is a video clip of our professor talking about some of the mushrooms we found, sorry it's hard to hear!

Overall this mushroom walk was a blast! It really goes to show you just how much you miss in life when you don't take the time to look... I never knew there were so many different kinds of mushrooms out there! And this, I'm sure, is only a few of the hundredths of species there is. Nonetheless, I know that a walk in the woods will never be the same again.
> I am defiantly hooked on mushrooming <

Additional Thoughts
This walk has made 'mushroom hunting' a new hobby of mine and I hope in the future I can attend many of the group mushroom forays and start my very own documentation and scavenging scrap book!!!!



On the Way Home
So once our 'mushroom day' was complete, instead of walking the same way back to school; along the highway, Paul (student) and I decided to walk through the arboretum back to the school! A more adventurous route.

On our way not only did we see even more mushrooms but also this:

We also stumbled upon a patch of 'Touch Me Not" flowers

These flowers have little bean pods that hang from them and when an animal walks by these pods literally explode and the seeds fly out... therefore animals help spread this flower around.

Here is a quick movie of me snapping a pod!
Watch the seeds fly!