Turkeys and Chickens

Today on the after lunch dog walk I had the good fortune to flush up over a dozen wild turkeys. That was the good news. The bad news is that my dog was with me on the dog walk. She is a Shepherd mix (German Shepherd, Australian Shepherd, etc.) and about 70 pounds of excitement on the end of a lead. No way could I take a photo with one hand and hang on to the dog with the other. Sigh! Because we want to encourage wild turkeys, deer, fox, American woodcocks, etc. on our property, our dog spends most of her time on a lead or on a chain in the barnyard. It's good for the wild animals but sure makes the dog keen for her walks. Anyway, I did not get any turkey photos even though the dog and I were within 2 metres (about 6 feet) of one turkey.

Not having turkey photos to share, here is another fungus. This one is called "Chicken-of-the-Woods," (Laetiporus sulphureus). Yes, it is that bright!

Mushroom yet again

After a long, very, very hot June and July, August has been wet and the mushrooms just keep coming up. We have found eight of the Giant Puffballs on our property as of today and many, many others of various shapes, sizes, and colours on and off the property. I thought you might be interested in how the Giant Puffball that I put up on the 24th looked on the 30th.



Below is a pair of much smaller mushrooms.



The two puffballs above are called Curtis's Puffballs (Lycoperdon curtisii) if I am not mistaken. They also allow me to answer Pablo's question of the other day about the photography involved as the same process was used for these puffballs as was used for the Giant Swallowtail caterpillar. The puffballs are about 2 cm (.8 inch) across. Our FinePix Fujifilm S7000 digital camera has not only a "Macro" setting but also a "Super Macro" setting that allows us to get within 1 cm (0.4 inch) of the subject. The photo of the puffballs came onto the computer in a 73 x 99 cm format (29 x 39 inches). The actual "puffball part" of the photo was 28 x 33 cm (11 x 13 inches). That gives me lots of room to crop and still end up with a large image. (I cut the images down to 6 x 4.5 inches on Photoshop to keep the photos small enough to upload on our rural line without spending the night waiting.) We bought the camera just to take photos like these.

Fungus from Sunday Afternoon

Here are some of the fungi that we photographed on our Sunday walk:











Sorry, I have no names even though some look familiar. Perhaps later I can go to my books and find names. For now just enjoy like we did.

Good Photo Day

The day started well as I found this water drop sparkling on a Rue plant just after I walked out the door.



About ten minutes later, while walking our dog, I spotted the first Viceroy butterfly that I've seen on the property and it was sitting still in the early morning dew.



After I took several photos of the side of the Viceroy, it decided to open its wings.



Could the day get any better? Well, yes. On our afternoon walk, Églantine and I took over 150 photos of fungus and flowers. It will take time to sort them out so have a look here tomorrow.

Giant Swallowtail Caterpillars

We were excited when we found the Black Swallowtail Caterpillar so imagine how we felt when we realized we had a Giant Swallowtail Caterpillar too. By the time two more days had passed we realized we had at least five Giant Swallowtail Caterpillars. We are looking for more. They are supposed to be rare in our area.



Below are some close ups of some of the patterns on the caterpillars.