Bioluminescent Firewood

Two unremarkable chunks of split cedar destined for a fire But look again – something strange is going on. It’s not photoshop tricks, just a long exposure in a dark room with a bit of fill flash I recently was offered a chance to see some glowing firewood a friend of a friend had noticed … Read more

Zygomycete

A couple of weeks back I had stopped to watch for the Northern Mockingbird and before it showed up, noticed some interesting looking growths. It looked like an overgrown mold (the tallest structures were probably 4-5 cm), so I figured it must be some sort of mold-related fungus. After sending the pictures to a friend, … Read more

Lower Gavan Hill

Of course the highlight of today was getting to photograph a Northern Mockingbird (which I posted about separately), but before that there was a wander around Lower Gavan Trail looking for mushrooms and whatever else turned up. There were a few mushrooms around, but I was also interested to hear an Anna’s Hummingbird that was … Read more

Mushroom Walk

This morning the kids and I joined a mushroom outing at Mosquito Cove trail led by last night’s seminar series speaker Kate Mohatt (who is one of the organizers of some forest/fungus fairs in Southcentral Alaska). It was interesting to see the diversity of species brought in by the various participants when they were all … Read more

Mosquito Cove

With a pretty good fall gale forecast to arrive tomorrow, this seemed like it might be the last opportunity for the year to get out in conditions approaching summer (~60F and sunny). Rowan suggested we go out to Mosquito Cove, so around mid-morning we drove out (on the much improved road) to the trailhead. It … Read more

Muskeg Earth Tongue (Geoglossaceae)

I am not so good at identifying fungi, but earth tongues seem relatively easy to identify to family (Geoglossaceae) and maybe even genus, but after that things get quite a bit more challenging. These were seen in a patch of muskeg that is a little different then most of what I see around here. Perhaps … Read more