Slimy stinky stuff

This Saturday I went with some like-minded members of the nature photography association Eindhoven (that I recently joined) to an old forest near Arnhem to look for toadstools. Despite the fact that the mushroom season is over the top I found some fresh ‘wanted’ species. Here are 2 of them:

• The well-known Stinkhorn (Phallus impudicus/Grote Stinkzwam). The latin name needs no further explanation. This mushroom belongs to the fungal order Phallales and is known for its foul smelling sticky spore mass, or gleba, borne on the end of stalks called the receptaculum. The spore mass attracts flies to help disperse the spores. All species of the Phallaceae family begin their development as oval or round structures known as ‘devil eggs’.
• A yellowish slime mold, very aptly named Scrambled Egg Slime (Fuligo septica/Heksenboter). The literal translation of the Dutch name is “witch butter”, also well chosen. Formerly they were classified as fungi, but today they are no longer considered part of this kingdom.

Who's afraid of Yellow and Green?

The first bird that appeared this morning in front of a new hide was this Grey Wagtail (Motacilla cinerea/Grote Gele Kwikstaart) in winter plumage. He (or she) walked straight to the spot where I wanted the bird to be, i.e., so that it was all surrounded by gold-tainted water (caused by the sunlit reed beds at the opposing shore).
After a couple of minutes it was scared off by a Green Sandpiper (Tringa ochropus/Witgatje), and flew away. Somewhat later a second Green Sandpiper appeared at the scene. Both birds stayed for more than 2 hours and I watched them washing, doing their feather care, feeding, and resting. Just before taking a bath they performed a very rapid zig-zag flight low over the water. Does anybody know the meaning of this strange behavior?
Green Sandpiper is very much a bird of freshwater, and is often found in sites too restricted for other waders, which tend to like a clear all-round view.

Mushroom variety

The summer of 2010 was very wet, but … it is an exceptional good year for mushrooms! Fungi species that have been thought to be extinct suddenly re-appear in the Dutch forests. Every drawback has its gain, to quote the well-known motto of Holland’s most famous football player, Johan Cruyff.
The large variety of shapes and colours keeps inspiring me. Here are some (rather common) toadstools that I found in one of my local forest patches, “Refelingse Heide” in Nuenen.

• Angel’s Bonnet (Mycena arcangeliana/Bundelmycena) – A tiny one, densely and disorderly stacked into a goblin pension.
• Pearly Webcap (Cortinarius alboviolaceus/Lila Gordijnzwam) – A fibrous gilled mushroom that I have never seen before.
• False Death Cap (Amanita citrina/Gele Knolamaniet) – The less familiar akin of the Fly Agaric (Amanita muscaria/Vliegenzwam), see also my previous upload.

Psychedelic mushroom, or insecticide?

Thank God, not only that there are Fly Agarics (Amanita muscaria/Vliegenzwam), but also that they are very common. Every autumn these photogenic fungi can be found just ‘around the corner’. The light rain made the mosses appear fresh and vivid.
By the way, did you know that:

• The name of this mushroom in many European languages is thought to have been derived from the fact that it was used as an insecticide, when sprinkled in milk.
• Fly Agarics were used for its hallucinogenic properties (with its main psychoactive constituent being the compound muscimol) by the peoples of Siberia, and has a religious significance in these cultures.

Silly walks

Juvenile Greenshank (Tringa nebularia/Groenpootruiter) chasing small fish around sunset. It was fun to watch this; the ‘silly walks’ on long stilts reminded me of John Cleese in his role of chaotic hotel owner in the TV-series “Fawlty Towers”. What a unsurpassed humour, it’s an indelible part of my education.
Vague in the background there is a group of noisy adolescent Lapwings (Vanellus vanellus/Kievit).

Zipper web

This morning circumstances for taking pictures of dew-covered insects or other invertebrates were perfect (if you find them :-). After a heavy late-afternoon shower yesterday, the sky cleared up, and with almost no wind the temperature dropped overnight to slightly below 10°C. In early morning I went to my local patch, and pretty soon I found this Wasp Spider (Argiope bruennichi/Tijgerspin); this dangerous looking tiger lady was waiting immobilized for better times to come. I place the characteristic white zig-zag right line of her web right in the middle, like a big zipper running from top to bottom.

Hogwarts marsh

The above photo was taken half an hour after sunset at the “Mosbulten”. Every summer the water level in this restored marshland (‘compensation nature’ for the A50 highway between Eindhoven and Nijmegen) drops, creating alternate patches of land and water.

It was pretty scary alone in this marshland with the fast upcoming fog, the set in of darkness, and a calling Little Owl (Athena noctua/Steenuil) in the distance. I looked around carefully, but I did not see Harry Potter or one of his fellow wizards.