A Walk in the Woods

Images and Odes

A Walk in the Woods

copyright 2024 - et amplius by david w runyan II

Note to readers - My images are in the public domain for personal, nonprofit uses so feel free to use for your pleasure but credit me if sharing publicly. No commercial or profit uses allowed. Nature puts on the show, I’m just the reporter, she doesn’t charge admission so neither do I and I won’t permit my images to be used for profiteering.

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My affinity for forests runs deep. This substack is a celebration of nature: her beings, objects and vistas. This blog begins with a few orderly primers and thereafter will become a mayhemic hodge podge of randomness. I’ll be fleshing it out during winter so check back often. It will grow and expand on a daily basis.

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A forest is an untended garden, filled with mysteries, wonders and treasures. The further you wander off the path, the more wonders you’ll find. There are trees both living and fallen, wildflowers, mushrooms, insects, mosses, lichens, molds, streams, cascades, lizards, amphibians, mammals and birds, rocks and minerals, seeps and springs, bogs and fens, ancient evidence of human interaction. A forest is also seasoned with breezes and sunlight, aromas and vistas.

The forest is an intoxicant without adverse side effects.

And the forest is full of surprises if you’re willing to get off the path and penetrate her deeply. Case in point: the lower falls along a place called Briggs Brook in a place called Quabbin Wilderness. No one ever visits this hidden gem. I have the only known photos of the cascade. I named it Trillium Falls for two reasons: the stream splits into three heads as it flows over this boulder, and the surrounding forest proliferates with red, white and painted trillium. Easily, I could spend all my days in places such as this; isolated from society, listening to the sounds of the brook, smelling the many forest aromas, and taking in the scenery with my eyes.

COMING SOON - A series on the Doane’s Ravine and Lawrence Brook

good morning authors and artists . . . and the last waterfall in doane’s ravine is a dandy . . . i call it final falls . . . what a finale! an 18-foot vertical drop of liquid thunder presenting in two crashing curtains! . . . my chosen home, the north quabbin region of western massachusetts is such a completely resplendent place, nicht wahr?

For our journey, let’s begin with my favorite forest passion: mushrooms.

Of all the decorations in a forest, mushrooms are the most curious. I’ve been hunting them for decades and new species appear with every hunt. They come in every size from barely perceptible to twice the size of a soccer ball, every color you can imagine, shapes from the familiar to the bizarre, and the textures and patterns of their caps and stems have as much variety as do the corollas of wildflowers.

Over the years, I’ve learned which are edible, medicinal, toxic and deadly and yes, I do occasionally harvest, but only enough for one meal. We call this gentle harvesting. The mushrooms are the reproductive organs of the fungus. They have a job to do in nature so I generally leave them in peace to do their job.

I won’t be offering advice here about edibility or medicinal value. The stakes are simply too high and the outcome could be deadly. You need an education before consuming wild mushrooms and this blog is about the wonder and beauty of mushrooms, not their consumption.

Mushroom hunters come in three flavors: foragers, citizen scientists and photographers. There’s an umbrella name to cover all of us: “fungiphile” but I reject this name because it’s a homonym with a nefarious term so I prefer to call myself a fungionado, pronounced fun’-ja-na’-do.

Below is a quip I penned about mushrooms over in my other substack, “No Cause for Merriment” and it nicely sums up my affection for these fruiting bodies.

. . . on mischievous mushrooms

“Mushrooms are pranksters. They're governed by rules which they routinely break. They're defiant renegades and charming trouble makers. They seduce us into learning about them but the learning never ends.”

Now shut up, Dave, and show us some mushrooms!

I have a few million mushroom portraits. How many would you like to see? :)

Above is an intimate portrait of a group of wild Enoki, aka Velvet Foot . . . love that little gill flip, so cute!

And now, what I call translucencies. Whenever I meet a mushroom, one of the attributes I observe is the sheerness of the cap, to discover to what degree sunlight permeates the flesh.

The fruiting body above is one of the Amanitas and they’re known to have sheer caps so translucencies are a given with this species.

For me, photography is all about the light. Forests are endowed with enchanting, ever-fluctuating light play on, through and around the edges of wildlfowers and mushrooms. I’m always on the lookout for light play.

How do I capture these translucencies? Good question. I tread lightly in forests and I respect the role mushrooms play in nature so I don’t uproot them for portraits. In the case of translucencies, I place a mirror on the ground at the base of the mushroom and I shoot the image which appears in the mirror.

Note - If you happen to accidentally uproot a mushroom, dig a small hole in the ground and place it therein, or lean it up against a tree. Always leave mushrooms upright so that gravity can help them disperse their spores for reproduction.

Above is the Golden Chanterelle. It’s cap is medium density so direct sunlight is required to capture a translucency. Chants have what they call “false gills” and I’m rather taken by the way they create the similitude of veinwork.

The image above is a white Mycena. These tend to be small mushrooms; half-inch diameter and smaller but despite their size they’re as gorgeous as their larger cousins.

Above is the Hex Pore Polypore. The cap is dense so strong sunlight is required. Most people are familiar with gilled mushrooms but there’s another classification known as polypores which, instead of gills, disperse their spores from pores.

Above is an Oysterling; much smaller than Oysters but wow do they glow!

Now, let’s delve a little into mushroom color diversity.

I stated earlier that mushrooms come in all colors and some bizarre shapes so to demonstrate both, here’s what they call the Dog Nose Fungus which is one of only a few black mushrooms worldwide and it has a shape and texture worthy of its common name. The surface of the cap is wet, shiny and covered in tiny bumps just like a dog’s nose. How do you like them apples, Alice?

Another color to be found in the mushroom kingdom is purple. Below is the very purple, very adorable Cortinarius iodes. This mushroom has a habit of posing artistically alongside its forest peers; in this instance, hanging out with a couple of acorns. These are abundant in my New England forests but in places outside its range are other species of purple Corts so every forest has its share of purple.

Another color found in the mushroom kingdom is pink; to wit: Coral-pink Merulius. This particular cluster enjoying the random companionship of a red maple leaf.

We can’t forget blue, now can we. This mushroom is aptly named Blue Cheese Polypore, note that the blue is not bleu.

The color orange is well represented in the mushroom kingdom, no more flagrantly than by the oddly shaped Orange Peel Fungus which is nearly a neon orange.

White is, of course, common among mushroom colors but never any more mesmerizing than in Puffballs with their ornate cap textures.

Yellow is another common color among mushrooms. Here we find a mature Amanita catching a few morning spotlight rays and in birdbath posture.

To represent the color red, I’ve chosen the Caeser’s Amanita which, by the way, is oftentimes a chameleon, transitioning to orange and then yellow as it matures.

Green is the second most rare mushroom color after black, but they do exist, as is demonstrated here by this Green Russula.

Brown is probably the most common color in the mushroom world, but the shades of brown are endless. This Gunpowder Amanita has a unique brown hue.

And lastly, we can find gray in the mushroom kingdom as with this Bolete.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this little primer on mushrooms. I have collected about two-million mushrooms portraits over the decades so I’ll be adding several others in the coming months.

Before we detour into the wildflower primer, one last item of interest about mushrooms. There’s a classification of fungi I call weepers, mushrooms that shed tears. This is the one I call Ruby Teardrops. It’s a very young Blushing Rosette. The teardrops are mositure vented through the mushroom and in many cases it takes on a tint as it passes through. The process is known as guttation and it’s not limited to mushrooms; plants can also experience guttation.

If you’re interested, I have an ebook on Kindle: Mad About Mushrooms

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To kick off the primer on wildflowers, a brief video to introduce my readers to me and to a wildflower called the nodding white trillium.

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Every cultivar owes its existence to a wildflower so, when you meet people who call wildies weeds, remind them of this fact. Without wildies, there would be no garden flowers.

I tend to make intimate portraits of the design details of wildflowers. One of my favorites is the Chicory blossom which to most people, is a roadside weed, but to me is a study in blues from pale periwinkle to deep indigo. What makes Chicory visually exceptional is the way in which it’s petals and inner corolla reflect and refract sunlight. It’s a dazzling, glowing forest of pin striped stamens in contrasting sky blue and indigo topped with sugar-coated curlicue anthers, surrounded by an array of soothing periwinkle serrated petals.

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The common daisy looks rather elegant with light play, wouldn’t you agree?

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Another wildflower considered to be a roadside weed is Spiderwort. The common name doesn’t do justice to the visual appeal of this flower.

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Spiderwort come in purple, blue, white and, like this one, pink.

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The Blue Flag iris grows in and around water. It’s big and bold and flamboyant.

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Deptford Pink, a tiny wildflower, barely a quarter inch across, loaded with design beauty and the foundation from which garden variety Dianthus were derived.

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Willow Catkin, the flowering part of the willow tree.

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The Day Lily, aka Tawny, regarded again as a roadside weed but in this portrait revealed as an amber elegantress of the dawn.

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Dizzy yet? Purple Coneflower, aka Echinacea; a favorite of butterflies.

As with mushrooms, I’ve captured some two-million wildflower portraits over the decades so as with mushrooms I’ll be popping in wildflowers from time to time so check back when you have time and inclination. This blog expands daily.

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So, what does a nature photographer do in winter? He shoots snowflakes of course because the nature photographer is obsessed with nature and in capturing the beauty of nature in portraits.

In the mid-1800s, lived a farmer/scientist in Vermont named Wilson Bentley. Since a teenager, he was fascinated by snow crystals. He’d collect them, place them on microscope slides and attempt to pencil sketch them while looking thru the microscope but even at temps near zero, snowflakes sublimate and lose their facets and features. As luck would have it, photography became a technology concurrent with Mr. Bentley so he connected a camera to a microscope and started capturing the world’s first photographs of individual snowflakes.

Today, we still use the method for snowflake portraiture developed by Wilson Bentley and it’s a crazy hobby which requires rare passion. I have a saying about those who do this crazy thing: “Those of us who shoot flakes, ARE flakes!”

This snowflake is a form I call stubby stellar.

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And this is an example of the typical complex dendrite snow crystal.

I have approximately seven-thousand snowflake portraits so as time permits, I’ll be adding them to this blog.

If interested, my Kindle Ebook on snowflake photography: Enchanting Evanescence

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Another of my favorite subjects is dragonflies. Most species are skittish. It took me a while to learn how to befriend them to a point where they’d tolerate my camera and my body.

When you begin to study dragonflies in a semi-scientific manner you become instantly fascinated by every aspect of their life and anatomy and amazed at their aerial navigating skills.

This handsome fellow is the male Calico Pennant in his dashing red-on-black color schema. Have a close look at the stained glass window pane wings. He’s looking for a girl so let’s see if we can find him one.

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We found him a girl! Here she is, the female Calico Pennant in her striking yellow-on-black color schema.

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Here’s the male Blue Dasher so let’s find him a girl too because in the dragonfly world, just as in the human world . . . it’s all about getting the girl

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And here’s the girl, she has her black thigh highs on, she’s ready!

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Now comes the female Halloween Pennant, so shall we find her a guy? You’ll notice that like the Calico, her color scheme is yellow and black.

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And here he is, the male of the species. And with him too you’ll notice that like the Calico, his color scheme is red and black.

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This species is called Dot-tailed Whiteface but I call him the Tuxedo Dragon for his handsome black and white color scheme. He’s also a hard one to shoot for a couple of reasons. First, because he perches on the ground, getting close enough to him for an intimate is a real challenge and ground perching makes pretty backgrounds scarce.

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This guy is one of the emeralds, which has its own family. In shape, size and preferred habitat, they resemble skimmers, but all of the emeralds have green eyes, face, thorax and abdomen.

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In the meadowhawk family, all the males are a rich red while all the females are caramel colored. A distinction between the genders; males tend to perch on the ground or large objects like fallen trees and boulders, while females tend to perch upon non-flowering vegetation. A note to be added here: you will rarely see dragons perching on wildflowers; they eat flying insects and flying insects visit flowers but dragons don’t attack insects pollinating because dragons are aerial interceptors exclusively. So they prefer perches from where they can spot prey in flight.

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And here’s his woman, the female meadowhawk. These girls like the leaves of dense vegetation. They’re shy and they often bring their wings forward to make a veil, as you would expect a shy girl dragon to do. Observing dragon behavior will keep you busy for a very long time. The different species have different habits.

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This is a photo of a fresh new Banded Pennant. When you study this species online you discover that the adult female abdomen has yellow stripes and the adult male has a blue abdomen. So based upon that study, you might assume this to be a female. But you’d be wrong. In the dragon world, the immature males (called tenerals) look like the females. I can tell by the narrow terminal appendage that this is a teneral male. The female terminal appendage is broader and is called an ovipositer, because from it, she dispenses her eggs.

If you’re interested, my Kindle Ebook on dragons: Flights of Fancy.-

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OK, done with the organized primers and now I go rogue and random which is consistent with my nature. My nature photos, which number in the millions, are largely unorganized because I’m great at going to the forest and not so great at keeping things orderly. Consequently, this photo blog will hop, skip and jump all over the nature spectrum with no organization whatsoever. Keep the mouse on the scroll bar. You’ll do a lot of rapid dragging here in return visits.

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Meet Leftie! There’s a ravine in New Salem named The Bear’s Den , where the Middle Branch Swift River drops fifteen feet over boulders. And as it does so, it splits into two heads which become two very different waterfalls. This one is the left side as you face the river and it’s a real thrasher as it bounces its way downward to the plash pool at its base. The splash pool hosts a counter clockwise rotating disc of river foam which has constantly changing abstract art patterns in the foam disc. You can notice a slice of the rotating foam disc at the lower left corner of this photo and I will, sooner or later, post a photo with the foam in its entirety. Will also post Rightie.

This place is highly favored by the locals as a wedding venue.

The ravine, like most fissures, is difficult to photograph. It blocks the sun so a long shutter is required but that can overexpose the water and if you speed up the shutter then the elements of the ravine become too dark. So, as with most waterfalls, the best time to shoot is 6am with low angle sunlight and a long shutter,

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Norfolk Southern freight train rounding the bend at Kennebunk Curve. All man made noises are annoying to me . . . except trains, and I’m not sure why that is. In the North Quabbin, our river is curvaceous and winds its way inbetween mountains. The train tracks follow the river so they too are sinuous.

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Sunset over the North Quabbin from the summit of Bearsden Mountain Road.

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The keystone arch bridge over Swift River, Quabbin. The bridge was built by a team of six men at a cost of three-thousand five hundred dollar in 1886 and still stands today. If the bridge was built today, the cost would be millions of dollars, it would take five years to complete and it would need repair within five years of completion. Progress!

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Quabbin, one hundred twenty square miles of no cell phone towers, no phone poles, no man made structures, no highways, no cars, no noise just one hundred twenty square miles of densely forested hills and mountains surrounding a very large lake.

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A fern-lined path in Harugari Woods. Ferns are charming, but as a New Englander where every path and trail is fern-lined, I took them for granted; yes I knew they were there and yes I loved them, but in their ubiquity I assumed they proliferated everywhere on the planet except the desert. I was wrong of course and when I would travel to other parts of the country and visit their forests, the lack of ferns was so stark that I instantly realized what was missing . . . ferns!

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Another thing ferns are good for . . . food! The new fern shoot arising from the rhyzome is called the fiddlehead, for obvious reasons. In this state, they are a most tasty hors d’oeuvres. Fiddleheads are also good subjects for intimate portraits.

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Ferns also reflect early morning light softly from their mildly subdued-green fronds and as the first light of the dark forest are quite enchanting and inviting.

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Autumn at the back side of Lake Sheomet. One of the benefits of living in New England is that you usually get treated to a vibrant, spectacular fall. In addition to the customary yellow/orange/red we also get purple, pink and chartreuse. If you ever have a chance to vacation in New England, pick fall, then follow the colors as they progress southwesterly, starting in the white mountains of New Hampshire, then the Green Mountains and Vermont and finally the Bershires of Western Massachusetts.

The funny think about Lake Sheomet, we call this the back side but since this is where Tully Brook enters the lake, it’s technically the front. Meanwhile, the backside is what we call the front because that’s where people congregate to launch kayaks and canoes, swim, have a BBQ and so forth.

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Introducing Handsome Falls. In Royalston resides the Doane’s Ravine through which Lawrence Brook flows and drops a total of eighty feet as she goes. Along the three-quarter mile course through the ravine, there are six waterfalls, this one, which I named Handsome Falls, is the fourth. I will have much to post about Doanes as we proceed into the future.

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Artistic pastel sunset down Quabbin way.

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Let’s visit winter again, shall we? At Silver Lake after the storm.

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Rural New England road with no hideous phone poles or equally hideous power lines, passing through frosted a frosted forest.

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One very frozen lake at sunset.

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These silvery raindrops on a brown oak leaf caught my eye. They’re pretty. Not much color in the scene but captivating nonetheless.

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ColorSalad . . . this place was so pretty, I sat down on that fallen tree and had some lunch. Then I fell asleep sitting on the fallen tree. I woke about forty-five minutes later and was astonished at how comfortable I felt on the hard fallen tree.

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Mushroom hunters have heard of Chicken of the Woods, Hen of the Woods and Shrimp of the Woods . . . now introducing, tada! Bacon of the Woods. lol

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Not all mushrooms play hide-and-seek. Some, such as the Golden Pholiota, scream at you from fifty yards away. This species is an October bloom where I come from.

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This is the tumble I named Angel Rock Cascade because the water spray from a distance looks like a small angel standing in front of the rock. The cascade is located along Tumbling Brook in Bearsden Forest. Tumbler flows through the cleavage between two mountains and drops approximately two-hundred feet over a one-mile course. Along the brook are about twenty cascades, some small, some not so small, but each of them enchanting and since they had no names, I gave them names according to how they impressed me. The people in town have accepted my names, mostly I suspect because I’m one of only a handful of people who visits this mountain stream and they appreciate me introducing them to the beauty they never get to see.

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Bigroot Geranium doing an anther dance. Those familiar with this flower know all about these corolla theatrics. The range of colors is remarkable with this flower.

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Berry intimate. Wish I could tell you which plant produces this lovely berry but while I’m good with wildflower IDs, that knowledge was obtained through the blossoms, not the leaves so once the blossoms vanish, I’m lost, and this is why they always tell you to learn your wildies by their leaves. Anyway, it’s a gorgeous little berry, isn’t it, and it looks nice as an intimate portrait.

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Time for another cascade. One of my passions is to find unnamed mountain streams, and explore them to see what kind of visual treats they have to offer. I then groom the cascades and take their portraits. I give the unnamed stream and her cascades names according to how they impress me. In this case, I named the little waterfall Sliver Bend for the narrow jet of water that squeezes through the rocks after bending to the right. And the stream I named Slicer Brook for the way it cuts a path through the forest between the rocks.

These little cascades make the sweetest undulating gurgling and rushing sounds and there are always rocks for you to sit on and relax while hearing the symphony of the water, perhaps joined by the wind. You have them all to yourself. There’s a reason why they’re unnamed . . . because they’re unvisited.

Another thing I love to find in a forest is what we call a Quabbin cellar holes. Everyone who lives here knows exactly what you mean when you say cellar hole. It’s the foundation of what was once a farmhouse, long abandoned and burned and all that remains are the stones of the foundation (cellar). These homes were all built prior to the 1920s when concrete foundations began to put in their appearance. Many times, around the grounds you find artifacts left behind which give you hints about how people lived in those days. Cellar holes are a prime curiosity in Quabbin and it’s not easy to find them as they’re set back from the trails and surrounded by new growth forest. But I manage to find my fair share. It’s always a thrill. At this particular cellar hole, some ferns have decided to decorate the floor. Have I ever mentioned how much I love ferns? Oh yes, I did! Sorry for being redundant.

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Sweat bee making love to a Coreopsis. Some insects are hit & run pollen grabbers and hard to photograph but some insects, such as this one, luxuriate on the flower for a good long time, providing ample opportunity to snap a shot.

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Have a look at this will you! Are these just the prettiest two-tone mushrooms you ever did see! They happen to be in the Crepidotus family, and they happen to be on their way out but what a way to go! With striking beauty.

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These little guys need a shave! The whiskers on the bonnet mushrooms are actually a mold known as, what else, Bonnet Mold . . . isn’t that interesting; a fungus attacked by a mold.

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Oh, it was a brilliant sunrise down at Silver Lake on that morning! But all those lens flares are the bane of every photographer who shoots directly into the blazing sun. Some folks like lens flares; I’m not one of those. but there they are so that’s that.

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Now this is a sight few people ever have the pleasure of taking into their eyes. This is the carnivorous Pitcher Plant flower in bloom. These plants lose their petals in only 2-3 days so catching them in bloom is a trick and a treat. They grow exclusively in bog environments and in New England, we’re blessed with millions of bogs, well, maybe thousands, but anyway, if you live in New England you won’t have to go very far to visit a bog.

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And this is the pitcher of the Pitcher Plant, the carnivorous member, and it’s surrounded by the equally carnivorous Sundew plants. Bogs are specialized environments and I urge those who can, to explore bogs and fens. There are insects and plants living there which can’t be found anywhere except in a bog.

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And I leave off tonight at the exotic Pink Lady Slipper wild Orchid, a delightful native wildflower of New England.

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Time for some squiggly gills . . . when mushrooms are ready to pass, their caps shrink at a faster rate than their gills, causing the gills to bend in some rather curious ways.

And a bonus shot, vertical Red Russula with light play.

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Back to wildflowers for a moment. And my favorite of the early woodland wildies; the one they call Bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis). It’s common name, Bloodroot, came about for a very obvious reason; it’s rhizome contains a red liquid. Natives used it for dye and medicine. Here in New England, this wildie begins showing up during mid to late March and persists into mid April. Let’s have a peek.

Here’s a patch of Bloodroot blossoms decorating a very brown forest floor. Aren’t they just a gorgeous sight for sore eyes! Radiant beauties they are!

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When we discuss Bloodroot, we certainly must discuss the most adorable design feature of this flower. The basal leaves literally hug the blossoms to help keep them warm on those cold late Winter night. Here’s a baby being hugged. Cute or what!

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And here’s a preteen Bloodroot still being hugged.

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Another adorable design feature of Bloodroot is that the stigma is in the shape of a heart as can be seen nicely in this intimate image with light play.

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Bloodroot intimate. I’m always doing these. I like the details. And there’s that heart-shaped stigma again, surrounded by butterscotch anthers and notice how the petals have greyish vein work for the appearance of faint pin stripes.

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Some twins as we say goodbye to the Bloodroot. So, how do you like this hardy little wildflower that blooms at the end of winter along with the snowdrops?

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Story Tyme . . . deep in the ravine formed by the cleavage between Rount Top and Little Round Top mountains is an unnamed mountain stream and since it had no name, i named it Sudden Stream because it appears by surprise as you make your way through the ravine . . . and all along Sudden Stream are dozens of small cascades, like this one which i named the Round Rock Cascade . . .

Each cascade has a personality, a character all its own, unique, which includes the visual effects as the stream bounces over and around the boulders in her bed, the auditory effects of the impacts of the stream against the boulders . . . the peripheral effects of the trees, plants, mosses and lichens which decorate the scene.

Sudden Stream and her cascades are hidden gems . . . no one ever visits, well, at least not that i’ve ever noticed . . . i never meet anyone during my visits and there is an appreciable total absence of human litter so i assume she’s normally left unmolested . . . and this is no surprise really since getting to her requires a tremendous amount of determination driven by passion because her place on the planet is steep and perilous and the vegetation is dense . . . there are no trails . . . you must bushwhack your way to sudden stream . . . you must also know how to deal with the usual pests: mosquitoes, deer flies, black flies and ticks . . . you also would need to be reasonably fit as going down requires as much energy and climbing back up . . . mountains are funny like that . . . no such thing as coasting.

All that aside, when you arrive you mingle with Sudden Stream and her myriad cascades, taking in all the sights, sounds and aromas, drinking her delicious and clean mineral water, relaxing with her, admiring her, allowing her to perform for you; a performance she puts on at no cost other than making your way to her.

Sum total of her course is 1.5 miles from an outcrop on the northern face of Little Round Top and her final confluence with the Mighty Millers . . . i have a passion for these kinds of places . . . i find them on topo maps . . . streams with no names . . . then i visit them and give them names according to how they impress me . . . i explore them source to end, taking in the various cascades, giving them names according to how each impresses me.

At the end of March i make my way in and groom the cascades, removing the tree debris so the fullness of the spring melt can flow freely and robustly along the stream . . . then in April, i return to make portraits of the cascades early in the morning when the angle of the sun is low to help balance the tones in the portraits.

I retire next year and my plan is to repeat this process on as many unnamed mountain streams as possible until my legs no longer carry me up and down mountains . . . i come from new england, a place with thousands of mountains and tens of thousands of mountain streams . . . i shall require at least five lifetimes to explore her fully so there won’t be any idle moments of boredom in my retirement.

this substack is a long term work-in-progress . . . i have a few million nature photos so i’ll be popping them into this stack all winter long, then begins the real fun, real-time vids and photos of forest activity starting in springtime 2024. Check back often