Fungi Wonderings

These odd looking mushrooms popped up in my backyard overnight. Might they be the fabled edible chanterelles? 

My neighbor, Ed, will know. He has tutored me in the fine art of chanterelle identification, assuring me of their safety and deliciousness when sautéed in butter or stirred into a nice gravy, but I don't trust my untested identification skills. 

If Ed gives them a positive ID, they're his. Sorry, chanterelle people out there. I'm not willing to risk it.  I’ve watched too many British murder mysteries in which poisonous mushrooms are the weapon of choice. 

Still, I am fascinated by the endless variety of fungi that show up in the yard after rain. By elegant arrangement, they break down dead organic matter for their own food, thus playing an important role in mother earth’s housekeeping system.

I like knowing that mushrooms are nature's consumers. I just don’t want to eat them. I'm quite happy allowing them to do their worthy work in the world uninterrupted. I've even imagined they could be hybridized somehow into an organism that decomposes plastic waste. Wouldn't that be an environmental coup? Meantime, I'm calling Ed. 

Several hours later:  

Ed confirmed that my backyard mushrooms were indeed chanterelles. He was happy to take them, but that begs the question: If someone harvests mushrooms from my yard and gets sick from them, would I be responsible?  Like I said, too many British murder mysteries. 

~dkm 9/22/23

Backyard Visitor

 Coyote in the back yard. 7:30p.m.  Skinny. Hungry. Sniffing in the grass and searching in the places where we saw a rabbit earlier that day. 

Blurry photos, taken at dusk from the deck and blown up. He was clearly aware of me.  

 I've never been afraid of anything in my own yard. But I'm thinking this will ensure that my trips to the compost corner in The Wayback will happen before dusk from now on. And I'll be burying the kitchen scraps quite a bit deeper.

~dkm 9-5-23 

Noisy Nestlings

BLUEBIRD UPDATE:

Once the parents finished building the nest in the new house, Mama laid four eggs on June 5th. 

She sat on the eggs faithfully for the fourteen days of incubation, leaving the nest only occasionally to find food for herself and stretch her wings. Often she peeked through the doorway to get some fresh air. 

Photo taken through the window
so as not to disturb her

The eggs hatched on Father's Day, June 18th.

Hard to see the new
featherless hatchlings.
Photo snatched quickly
whileMama was away.

Mama continued sitting on the nest for the first few days after the hatch, but left often to bring back food for her newbies. Soon she stopped sitting and began feeding full time, entering the house briefly each time she returned. Papa Blue helps with the feedings. They take turns ducking into the house every few minutes with their meal deliveries. 

Sometimes one or the other of the parents collects and removes a white fecal sac from the nest, which they carry away in their beaks. They often consume the fecal sacs themselves, for the nutritional value.

For further reading on this interesting tidbit:

https://madisonaudubon.org/blog/2018/7/30/into-the-nest-what-goes-in-must-come-out

 https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/ordway-lab/undergraduate-projects/northern-mockingbird-projects/why-birds-eat-fecal-sacs/

At first, the nestlings stayed low and silent in the nest, but within a few days they began squawking loud and clear whenever either parent arrived at the doorway with a morsel of food. 

Thanks to good parenting, the nestlings are growing rapidly. 

At 14 days old, they are strong enough to reach up to the hole to be fed.

 

The parents come more often now, feeding them from the doorway, poking their heads in, but no longer fully entering the house.

Mama:

Papa:

As for when the nestlings will fledge from the next, guidebooks report a wide range of 15-20 days after hatching, so it could be as early as Monday July 3, or as late as Saturday, July 8. Whenever it happens, a

few friends and I will watch and cheer them on from a respectful distance. It's become a tradition. 

Stay tuned... 

~dkm 7-2-2023 

                                                                                                            

Nature’s Consumers: Fungi

Slime mold again! Growing this time on the seat of my already deteriorating backyard swing, helping it along on it's slow return to the earth. 

                                                                                                              

Makes me wonder if fungi could ever evolve into consuming plastics!  Wouldn’t that be a wonderful thing!

Just thinking…

~dkm 6-18-23

Cooper's Hawk to the Rescue

On the sad reality of nature colliding with human civilization:

A louder than usual crash called our attention to the sliding glass back door. Tragically, a beautiful white-breasted nuthatch had flown into the glass and fallen to the deck beneath the bird feeders. We watched, hoping it was only stunned and would fly off again, as most do, but no. Its rotating struggle on the floor of the deck indicated a broken wing. 

Almost immediately, while we were still debating what to do, an ever-alert Cooper's hawk swooped in and lit ominously on the deck banister.  The image of stealth, he looked around in all directions before dropping to the deck floor beside the hapless nuthatch. More cautious observation of his surroundings, then BAM! He pounced and sunk his talons deep into his small prey. Again he delayed gratification, looking around. Once certain of no competition, he tightened his grip, spread his impressive wings, and took off with our pitiable nuthatch dangling from his feet. Fifteen minutes later I heard his distinctive cackle in the near distance.  

Was he proclaiming his lucky day? His easy breakfast?

Gruesomeness notwithstanding, he had made the best of a tragic accident and relieved us of the responsibility of tending to the problem. Still, what a grim reminder of just two of the many ways humans have invaded the world of the songbird—our feeders and our windows. We don’t want to take down the feeders, and we sure aren’t taking out the glass door, but I will be asking my friends at Wildbirds Unlimited if they have some effective window decals next time I stock up on worms and seeds. That poor spinning nuthatch still haunts me.  

~dkm 6-16-23

What IS This?

Anybody know?  Spied in the grass today not three feet from my feet while "longsitting" on the backyard swing for my daily hour. Curious!

Much as I hesitate to display my ignorance, I thought it was some sort of egg sac or gel. But when poked with a stick it wouldn't dislodge. It's growing from the ground. 

The “Picture This” app says it’s a stinkhorn mushroom, but it doesn’t look like any of the images of stinkhorns I found online, most of which looked more like the name of the genus they belong to: Phallus. I’ll leave you to look them up for yourself. Just google “stinkhorn mushroom.” Nature never disappoints 🙂 

Meantime, if you know the positive ID of this thing, fungus or egg sac, do tell in the comment section, and do please include your name. Backyard spectator wants to know.  

~dkm 6-10-23

Bluebird Nestwatch 2023

In the spring of 2021, an unknown predator, likely a raccoon, possibly a hawk, ate a nest full of four newly hatched bluebirds from the birdhouse in the back corner of the yard. I was horrified to find the damaged roof and empty nest, just days after the hatch. We repaired the roof, but no birds have nested in that house since, after having done so every year since 2010. And now the squirrels have chewed out the entrance hole to the extent that no songbird could ever feel safe in that house. Who can blame them? It bears the kiss of death.

So in March of this year, I hung a new birdhouse in a different location--from the eave of our house at the end of the deck. I doubted bluebirds would nest so near civilization, but I hoped for wrens or finches, both having reputations for nesting on porches. I found a few sticks in the bottom of the house soon after hanging it, but no further activity. Whoever started with the sticks must have chosen to nest elsewhere. 

The setting

Then one afternoon early in May I was sitting in that wicker chair in the photo, enjoying a cup of tea and a good book, when I heard the distinctive male bluebird murmurings of mating season behind my shoulder. Churrrr-chur-chur. Sure enough, a slow turn revealed Mr. Blue perched on the new birdhouse. Was he hoping to get lucky, or had he already been? As I watched, he flew away and returned immediately with a stick to drop into the house, then another and another. He didn't seem to mind my presence. 

After depositing enough sticks inside the house to declare his intention, he disappeared for a few more minutes, then, lo and behold, returned with the object of his affection, a handsome female, to show her his proposed location. Bluebirds! And I had a front row seat. Too bad my i-phone 12 camera was not up to the challenge, but I'll share what I could get. 

Mr. Blue presents his proposed location

He invites Ms. Blue to look inside

He makes his argument by
fluttering in and out of the house
and all around her.
She watches stoically.

He asks. She demurs. 

They discuss. 

He awaits her decision
 from the banister beneath the house
watching her every move

In the interim weeks I've seen them flying around the deck and feeders, but couldn't tell if they had built a nest in the box, until one day last week when Mr. Blue carried in sticks all day. All week I saw them both at the feeders more often. There is also a speckled newly fledged pair still being fed by Mr. Blue. Sometimes Ms. Blue comes to the feeder and "scolds" them gently, which surprises me, because I didn't think she could speak. Yesterday she chased them off the feeders and scolded me at the opposite end of the deck before she flew into the house and stayed there. This confirmed for me that she's sitting on the eggs of her second brood. I don't know exactly when she laid them, as I've been staying away from the deck, not wanting to disturb, but it was sometime in the past week. Today I took this quick peek in the house after I saw her make an exit. 

 

Bingo. Nestwatch 2023 begins. Expected fledge date: sometime near the end of June.  

It's a miraculous time of year.  ~dkm 6-5-23

Poor Thing

I honestly thought he was injured, when I saw him through the kitchen window.  He was lying on the floor of the deck, writhing pathetically, dragging himself across the floor, legs and wings all akimbo, a once handsome red northern cardinal. Had he broken his neck flying into the window? 

Oh but no. As I watched further, wondering if I had the guts to somehow put him out of his misery, it soon became apparent that, far from being injured, he was displaying himself to the object of his affection, the  lovely female cardinal on the banister. She looked as alarmed as I was---crest up, eyes blinking in an incredulous stare. Amazingly, that pitiable act of contortion on the floor of the deck outside my window was the cardinal's mating dance. 

Surely, I thought, the gal on the banister would not fall for this ridiculousness. Wrong. Fall for it she did, but not until playing a little hard to get, hopping along the banister, teasing him, looking over her shoulder, almost as if laughing. When he flew to her on the banister, having righted his twisted self, she flew off to a nearby branch in the cherry tree. He followed to settle on the branch beside her, suddenly the picture of health, She flew to a higher perch. He followed again. After repeating this game of cat and mouse a few times,  they flew off together into the woods... 

After it was all over, I couldn't help chuckling at that boy cardinal on the deck. I regret that thinking he was injured kept me from grabbing my camera until it was too late to capture him on film. Nor could I help comparing him to the males of any species, including my own, for the impressive lengths they go to in the pursuit of love. As my mother used to say in response to all manner of observations about life, "Thus it has ever been."   ~dkm 5-6-23

Photo Bomb Cardinal

 "How strange

 that Nature does not knock,

 and yet does not intrude."                                                                

                  ~Emily Dickinson

On a rainy day last week, after yoga, before our morning walk,

 the cherry blossoms beckoned us from the windows.  

One of the yogis, the good Dr. Pearl McHaney, 

stepped out on the deck to take a sweeping video 

of the annual March extravaganza.

 The cardinal did not knock.

~dkm 3-11-23

Backyard Lesson Learned Again and Again

How I missed the big thing beside it, I can’t imagine, when first I bent to investigate the small thing I saw in the leaves.  I even congratulated myself on my improved observational skills after fourteen years of nature blogging. The premise of the blog, after all, is what one can see for the simple act of paying attention. Time was, I mused, I might not have noticed this little patch of fur as I walked by. 

Leaning in close, I was already thinking it would become the subject of a post on how nature serves up mysteries one can never solve—like what sort of kerfuffle happened here––like who had been eaten in the foodchain such patch of fur represents–-like who was the predator and who was the prey? Perhaps a rabbit or squirrel had lost a battle royale and been carried off in the talons of an owl or a hawk. I often hear a barred owl hooting in the trees, and sometimes a lone red-tailed hawk screams overhead. Cottontail rabbits and gray squirrels abound in this Georgia backyard habitat. Those were the targets of my best guesses for questions that could never be answered with 100% certainty.

 

I practically had the post written in my mind as I pulled out my phone to take the photo, stepping left for a better angle. Imagine my surprise when that one leftward step answered this particular mystery loud and clear—or at least the prey half of it–– nearly causing me to trip and fall.  I still don't know how I could have been so blindly focused on a small patch of fur that I missed an entire dead possum adjacent, eyes plucked out, rib bones scraped bare, but I've revised my guess about the predator. Now I think it might have been a coyote or fox. We've seen both in the vicinity. 

In the header of this blog, I reflected that the simple act of paying attention outside has taught me to expect the unexpected.  If measured by the shock I registered at nearly tripping on a possum carcass, I haven't learned that bit of wisdom as well as I thought I had. Here's to continuing my education in the infinite classroom that is my own backyard. ~dkm