After a terrific fungi season in 2020-21, the last few have been disappointing, but recent walks around Golspie suggest that, with a bit of luck, 2025-26 might be a bit special. That said, I rather dread finding interesting-looking fungi as I feel obliged at least to make some effort to identify them, which takes ages as fungi books and websites are stuffed with pictures of the thousands of species which share our lives.
Happily, a few are easily identified, like this golden chanterelle - or is it a false chanterelle? - but I am NOT.... NOT going to spend hours trying to identify ones I don't immediately recognise. I'd rather concentrate on their looks, and the pleasure their discovery gives me....
....even though some of them look like horror-movie monsters lurking in the entrances to their caves, and others....
....resemble slimy eruptions from the bowels of the earth.
I do hope it is a special season as fungi come in the most glorious colours - yellow is the 'in' fungus colour at the moment - and in all sorts of shapes and sizes. They're also at their height when the rest of the wild-world has died back or migrated away for the winter, some, like the glorious scarlet elf cup, being in full 'bloom' in the depths of January.
So you've got to love your fungi, especially ones like this which you'd be tempted to buy if it were warm and steamy on the counter in your local bakery.
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