I almost always neglect to say where I find the subjects in my photos. Today I’ll show ya where I found some nice lichen to photograph.

Living in a rural area means the wild things are right in my ‘backyard’. Of course my backyard includes a neighbor’s farm consisting of wet woods, crop fields and swamps bordered by the Grasse River. Finding something interesting is no harder than wandering around in the hundreds of acres behind my house. When that’s not enough there are thousands of acres of ‘wild’ land within a short drive. Being a ‘stone’s throw’ north of the Adirondacks does have some advantages.

Dog and I checked out a rock pile in one of the crop fields out back. Old rock piles in a sunny location are a great place to seek lichens. Advantage mine – air quality is excellent (lichens need clean air) and piles of rock are left undisturbed for generations.

Look beyond the ‘new’ pile of rocks to see a ‘mature’ tree covered rock pile. Rock islands like this are a common sight in north country fields.

As expected, there were numerous colonies of lichens growing on the rocks and the conditions just right for erecting reproductive structures.

Pixie Cup Lichen – Cladonia sp.

I’m not going to argue over the common name but these things look more like wind instruments belonging to a pixie land brass band.

I ain’t whistling pixie, that red bug is a Red Bug. If you need to know more you can Google, chigger. While you do that, I’ll go walk naked through one of those car washes with the big spinning brushes, get a full body-wax and then just to make sure there’s nothing up my sleeve, burn my clothes. I already know more than I want to.

Actually I’m not worried, I see a lot of chiggers but have never had one dine on me, thank goodness.

Pookey started it all. She had to go out and she wouldn’t go without me. With looks like that, how can I resist. …and that’s not even close to her sad face. Here’s she’s just a bit upset because Stewy followed us.

But thanks to Stewy the bright yellow mushrooms in the lawn caught my attention. (They were just out of sight behind him)

Golden Waxy Cap – Hygrocybe flavescens

…is my best guess to the identity of this mushrom

synonym – Hygrophorus flavescens
The mushroom’s gills

Knowing it takes lab tests and DNA comparisions to properly identify Hygrocybe species makes me feel better. I get so discombobulated attempting to identify mushrooms I almost don’t want to photograph them. Yet I do and then spend way too much time trying to identify something like this one.

This orange waxy cap was growing only a few feet away from the yellow ones. It looked like two distinct colonies of fungi but from what I’ve read it wouldn’t surprise me if they were all the same. If not it’s still most likely to be another Hygrocybe species.

Yellow Lichen

Xanthomendoza I presume.
All I really know is that it’s yellow, foliose and shouldn’t be growing on my finger like that.

We circled the yard stopping often while I took photographs. Dog got bored and left but Stewy stuck with me the whole time no matter how boring it got being with me.

Orange Nod

Cedar this:
In winter the cedar woods provides a calm shelter for the deer. Snow filters through the canopy but the wind is kept at bay. Winter is subdued if only a little among the cedars.

In Spring the woods has an opposite effect. Now it feels colder where the sun don’t shine. I felt a chill run down my spine as I entered the dense cedars. Snow still clings on the northern slope where the cedars refuse to let the sun shine through.

The deer pass quietly through the shadows leaving a trail that won’t disappear when the snow melts. This is one of the ‘highways’ criss crossing the cedar woods that surround the house.

deer trail in cedar woods

A pocket of ice reveals warmth had penetrated the shadows. The melted snow had formed a puddle now frozen over. As the water soaked into the ground it left the thin ice suspended leaving this unique pattern.

thin ice and frozen water drops

The shiny spots on the ice are frozen water drops.
In this photo (from the other day) the frozen drops look like bubbles.

In today’s photo they look like they’re staring back at me.

I stomped on the ice in return. I needed to crack it up in order to prove I was right.

I took a photo of one of the many mini frozen waterfalls on the run-off stream before leaving the cedars. It’s not likey to be the last of the season.

Deer as usual were browsing in the corn stubble. It wasn’t until I opened up this pic that I realized I photographed the elusive 2 Headed Doe of Morley. Unfortunately the photo is ‘big foot’ quality and only a tabloid is likely to believe me.

Cedar that:
A flock of Cedar Waxwings perched high in a tree as I passed by. Bad lighting and distance kept me from getting a good portrait of one once again. There were over fifty in the flock and not one would pose for me.

My last stop was at the lichen landscape from the other day. I had the feeling I was being watched as I took photographs. I could sense something was eyeing me. Can you ‘see’ the eye?

How about now? When the dragon’s nictitating membrane winked at me I did what any self respecting Python Knight of the Round Table would do. I bolted screaming ‘Run Away’, ‘Run Away’.

Seeing is believing unless you’re looking in a mirror.