Fitzgerald Lake with Sofie

After Sofie’s swim lesson and a stop at Woodstar Café (eclair, burps) we decided to explore the Fitzgerald Lake Conservation area. It’s been an unusually arid fall and it’s late in the mushroom season, so for us budding mycologists, sightings were scarce.

We spotted some rather downtrodden remnants of dried Turkey Tail (Trametes versicolor) and Violet-tooth polypore (Trichaptum biforme) here and there. However, we then noticed a thin-walled maze polypore (Daedaleopsis confragosa) which takes the title as most exciting fungi sighting of the day, for sure.

Close by, Sofie spotted an insect case on a tree. From afar, I wondered if it was black knot fungus but this likely houses to tent caterpillars to emerge in the spring.