Yet Another Rabbithole

So lately I've been going down the mushroom rabbithole - I blame the Bruce Trail and their shiny, shiny badges, because Beaver Valley released a 'mushroom hunter' badge that is gorgeous and I need it like burning. So clearly I needed to practice mushrooms, which led to reading about mushrooms and photographing mushrooms....

Yeah.

Goblet Waxcaps (Hygrocybe cantharellus)

Mushrooms are... frustrating, so far, in many ways. I've been spoiled by birds and butterflies and dragonflies and wildflowers, which are all (relatively) big showy things with (sometimes) big identifiable field marks and (mostly) easily accessible and comprehensive field guides. Mushrooms... are not those things. There are so very many of them, and a lot of them look the same, and identification frequently comes down to putting things under a microscope and even then apparently sometimes it just doesn't work out for a variety of reasons. There are generic mushroom field guides available, sure, but after picking through a few of them trying to work out an ID, I'm not convinced they're actually functional considering how many species have to get left out in order not to have a massive three-volume tome. And there's an entire new language of technical terms to learn in order to know what they're talking about half the time.

So yeah, here's me, overconfident, thinking I'll just wander around with my camera and pick it up no problem. I know that you have to flip over the cap and see what the gills (or pores, or lack thereof) look like, I know you should take note of what the habitat is and what they're growing on. Surely that's got to be enough to start from, right?

?????

Sigh.

I am getting a little better. I haven't tried doing a spore print yet, although it's probably only a matter of time, for curiousity's sake if nothing else. I... am not sure I will ever get to the point where I want to collect a bunch and put them under a microscope, but hey, never say never, there was a point where I didn't think I'd ever be as much of a birder as I am now, either. Anything is possible.

At the very least, I'm gonna get that badge. And then we'll see.

Violet-toothed Polypore (Trichaptum biforme) with Fairy Pins (Phaeocalicium polyporaeum, technically a lichen but whatever; they're the tiny black bips growing on the top of the cap)

Oak Mazegill (Fomitopsis quercina)