Autumn, the time of year with its humid, and damp weather, brings an abundance of fungi and mushrooms to woodlands, hedges and fields.
Every year in October we set out hunting some of them in a few of the local woods, a nice break from our traditional photographic routine. And where better to go fungi hunting than the New Forest, where you not only see hundreds of different mushrooms, but also a wide variety of wildlife: ponies, donkeys, pigs, … all this with in the background the impressive soundtrack of deer bellowing in the distance.
Wild mushrooms grow everywhere in the UK and most of them pop up and decay without ever been noticed. Most of the time we’re just not paying attention or they’re so small we’re only able to appreciate their beauty with a macro lens.
For whatever reason i.e. to forage or to just admire, the easiest time to find wild mushrooms and fungi is from September to November when they are most plentiful; however, there are some to be found in every month of the year, particularly now that winters are becoming much warmer.
Most woods in the UK are open to the public and everyone is free to walk in them and you might be tempted to pick mushrooms. But watch out, in more and more forests, they do not allow the public to remove flora, including mushrooms and fungi!
All of the species pictured here have lovely earthy colors and textures and provide some stunning photos when shot “macro” style.
These shots represent everything I love in macro photography. The simple, fragile, ephemeral beauty of a tiny (a few mm) mushroom on the forest floor. Examples of the incredible biodiversity that exists right on our doorstep but remains mostly invisible to the casual hiker…until a photographer with a macro lens comes along.
This time we were lucky to be allowed to stay for a few days in the fantastic Cadnam Lodge, a beautiful cottage set within the grounds of a private estate in the New Forest. Look it up on internet, you will not regret your choice. Thank you again Sandra for being the perfect host.
And as for the foraging of the edible mushrooms, I’ll wisely leave that to the professional foragers, I prefer to buy mine in the supermarket !
“There are old mushroom hunters and there are bold mushroom hunters, but there are no old bold mushroom hunters”
