a wet, dewy morning followed by mushrooms

Yesterday's very wet dewy morning, featured a Cooper's Hawk that was eventually driven off by the crows. The extremely high spring tides (yes, you can have spring tides in the fall) filled the pond, attracting fish and a few birds: Mallard and Black Duck (which stay on the surface and presumably don't eat fish) and Double-crested Cormorant which spends a lot of time underwater catching fish. Royal Terns continue to work the creek, parading up and down in some numbers and diving for fish. Ditto Belted Kingfisher. Osprey? The locals are gone and I don't even see many migrants coming through

What has been coming through are a few Monarch Butterflies -- either fluttering overhead or basking in the sun to dry themselves off and/or recharge their batteries. Hopeful but nothing like it used to be.

Today's top birds were a tail-wagging Palm Warbler and a surprising flock of over two dozen yellowlegs -- seemingly a mixture of Lesser and Greater.

Two of my favorite mushrooms have appeared in the past few days, both excellent edibles. One is a lactarius or milk mushroom (it exudes moisture from its gills underneath the cap) -- Lactarius volemus -- is its Latin name. It's a very attractive mushroom with an orange cap and a rather firm brittle texture. It usually comes up in the late spring and/or early summer but there was little rain this year so it only managed to emerge just now as we're having spring/summer weather in the fall. The other is the Wood Blewit -- in spite of the name, more purple than blue. Alas, I could find only two specimens, both with the sort of squat fairy-tale mushroom look that is one of its features. The Latin name is Clytocybe nuda although it has also been dubbed Lepista nuda, Tricholoma nudum, Tricholoma personatum and other things as well. Don't let anyone tell you that the Latin moniker is more stable than the vernacular name.

Today's mushrooms are also goodies: a few Wood Blewits (Clitocybe nuda) again and Hen of the Woods (Grifola frondosa) are both good edibles

Eric Salzman