MUSHROOMS, INSECTS, AND A BIT OF RAIN IN BETWEEN

On November 27, 2024, the sky was overcast with a thick layer of gray clouds while I was driving towards the woods near the town of Zminj, about 50 kilometers from where I live.

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In this opening photograph, you can see two lovely pale mushrooms posing among the dead leaves ...

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... fallen from the branches above them.
This colorful autumnal foliage belongs to the downy oak (Quercus pubescens). In the following photograph ...

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... you can take a look down the narrow country lane that leads through the forest.

Dead leaves aren't the only thing that comes down from the oaks in autumn.

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Plenty of acorns can be found in the leaf litter.

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When it comes to the pale fruiting bodies from the opening photograph ...

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... I can't tell you what fungus they belong to.

Lachnus roboris is an exceptionally big aphid.

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Becouse of this unusual size it took me a minute or two to realize that I was looking at an aphid.
The species is commonly known as the Variegated Oak Aphid.

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These aphids feed on juices from the twigs and small branches of various oaks.

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This elegant and slightly poisonous mushroom which has pushed its way through a thick layer of fallen leaves is the Amanita citrina...

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... commonly known as the False Death Cap or Citron Amanita.

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In this set of four photographs, you can take a better look at its cap that bears the remains of the egg-like envelope from which the mushroom as we see it in the post sprouted and developed.

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At some point, while I was busy photographing, it started to rain ...

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... so I ran to my car. In this shot, you can see the scenery through the wet windshield. The raindrops deformed the picture in a very tasteful, impressionistic way. In the following triptych...

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... I got closer to those liquid jewels on the windshield.

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Zooming on the distant branches near the tops of the trees, and doing it through the wet glass decorated with droplets, created a misty, dream-like imagery.

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I had about 10 to 15 minutes of fun there in the car before the short, gentle rain stopped.

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A tractor passed by when I got out of the car ready to look for more mushrooms, so I took this shot.

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Here you can see a portrait of some small mushroom I wasn't able to identify.

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The fruiting body looked like a worm-like, wiggling animal.

This is the Lonchoptera bifurcata, a small fly from the Lonchopteridae family.

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In this photograph you can see a different part of the fungus, not the usual photogenic fruiting bodies.

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These white threadlike filaments are the thing that continues being a fungus when the short-lived fruiting body decays after releasing the spores.

Here you can see the same mycelia photographed in the low natural light provided by the gloomy autumn day.
A minute or two later, it started raining again, and the rain was rapidly getting much heavier than before, so I ran to the car and drove back home.

THAT'S ALL I PREPARED TO SHOW YOU TODAY. JUST ANOTHER ORDINARY DAY IN THE WOODS. AS ALWAYS HERE ON HIVE, THE PHOTOGRAPHS ARE MY WORK - THE END.

The following links will take you to the sites with more information about some of the protagonists of today's post. I found some stuff about them there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quercus_pubescens
https://bladmineerders.nl/parasites/animalia/arthropoda/insecta/hemiptera/sternorrhyncha/aphidoidea/aphididae/lachninae/lachnini/lachnus/lachnus-roboris/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amanita_citrina
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/203415-Lonchoptera-bifurcata