Foxfire: A Surreal Experience!

I CAN'T BELIEVE I FORGOT TO POST ABOUT THIS!

I was on a night-time run with my dog on the backroads near my house in early August of 2010 and saw an eerie, greyish-bluish-green glow coming from a spot about 50 yards into the woods. Knowing that area to be too densely wooded and too sloped for camping I was a little weirded out but figured that someone had drunkenly wandered into the woods and maybe passed out with a flashlight or cellphone turned on and I was concerned (people stop on that road frequently to drink or dump trash unfortunately). My dog usually reacts to the presence of another creature or person and he did not even register any sort of acknowledgement of whatever was causing the light. I called toward the light to see if anyone was there, the woods remained stone-silent. At this point the every hair on my body began to stand on end and my pulse started racing. This scared me a lot, having never encountered it before, but my curiousity was just a little bit stronger than my fear. I turned on my flashlight and with a death-grip on my dog's collar started slowly walking into the woods. When I got to the area where I figured the light had been coming from I saw nothing at all, not even a hint of a glow. With my brain and heart both amped up from the fear I did not know what to think. I really didn't want to but figured the best way to get another glimpse of the glow was to douse the flashlight. Upon covering the flashlight with my hand I was both stunned and amazed by what sat directly six feet in front of me: my first ever bioluminescent fungus discovery. I had no idea that this sort of thing occurred in environments other than tropical & temperate zones. Having studied and marveled at it for a few minutes I then ran home as fast as my legs could carry me to grab my camera.

Upon further study I determined that the species of the fungus is probably the immature form of Panellus Stipticus just barely starting to culture in the moist, freshly exposed wood of this fallen birch tree, having not formed true caps yet. It is also one of the species often referred to colloquially as 'Foxfire' but I have yet to confirm this.

Following is a progression of pictures alternating normal flash exposures with the same shots taken in the dark. The only thing different from the pictures was that the glow was more of a pale bluish green and it saturated the wood more thoroughly than in the pictures, the camera apparently only picked up the green spectrum. These are all 15-second exposures with a 2.4 aperture setting, 1600 ISO.

The other amazing thing about this is the very narrow margin of conditions which it requires to actually glow. Temperatures need to be about in the high-30s - high 40s with the humidity, type of wood, level of degradation of the wood as well as the time of year being just right. I feel very fortunate to have seen this.

Random Wildflowers

Northeast side of Mt. Ascutney

Wild Columbine blossom

Wild Geranium

Wild Dianthus (Sweet William)

And For My 200th Blog Post:

More pictures, what else would I be posting?


I recently took my parents canoeing on Long Pond in Lempster, NH. I bought the canoe last year almost brand new, very cheap. It is quite stable and tracks nicely.

The Lempster Wind Farm as seen from on the water (click the picture for more detail on the turbines). This is something of a pilot project which many other areas in the state are watching to gauge the success. I hope it catches on!

Wild blueberry blossom

Mountain Laurel Bloom

A rather odd-looking fungus growing on a tree on one of the islands in the middle of Long Pond

Out on a hike on the country roads in my neighborhood: my friend Matt on the right, his youngest son in the red jacket, my youngest child in the black fur coat

A lovely cow-meadow right above my house

The road above my house (where I had the night-time moose encounter in the previous post).

One of the ecological treasures in my area is the presence of some old-growth trees which are well beyond a century old, probably saplings when the area was first cleared for farm land. This sugar maple is one of them. We have dubbed it the "Whomping Willow" because of the resemblance to the tree in the Harry Potter movie.

A porcupine den in an old-growth poplar tree down in a ravine in the middle of the woods.

Eastern Phoebe (probably female) sitting on a clutch of eggs

Possibly a timely picture considering recent events, I took this a week before he died. It was in a free book pile that someone brought in at my workplace. I thought it made for an unusual children's book.

Nonsequitur = Idiot, Part 2 (possibly more of one than you originally thought)

Here are a few pictures of one of my parents' visitors; no zoom on the lense, I was literally five feet away. No, I was not terribly concerned. Yes, I had good running shoes on in case he did not enjoy having his portrait taken.

I believe this is the one my parents call "Boscoe." He is a bit larger than a great dane (and weighs in at a good three hundred pounds I'd guess).

He also has his own food bowl. I and other family members/friends have advised my parents that it is a very bad idea to get them used to being in proximity to humans, especially by teaching them to associate our species with food. I pray that this does not become an issue.


A hopeful sign: even though he allowed me to get really close to him, he still showed apprehension and flight tendencies whenever I made any sudden movements or approached too quickly. This indicates that he is still at least somewhat scared of humans, but if he was really hungry and a human was carrying food that smelled appetizing, who can really tell what would happen?

A snapping turtle (a bit larger than a soccer ball) I saw crossing the road not far from my house. Again, I did not use the zoom on this picture either. I've photographed other snappers before but they were quite agitated and never allowed me to get this close. He seemed very relaxed and indifferent to my presence....

...even when the camera lense was only twenty inches from his face.

I grew up around lots of wildlife and while I appreciate their beauty and their role in the ecosystem, there is also a healthy respect for the damage they are capable of. I don't advise getting this close to either of these creatures unless you are quite familiar with their body language, sometimes even that is no guarantee of safety (as many self-styled nature photographers with big scars could tell you).

Hike To Gunnison Lake & Mt. Sunapee

Thursday was my day off so I decided to go on one of my long, rambling walkabouts (gee, I hope Australians aren't the only ones allowed to use that term). It is a form of walking meditation; helping me to iron out my priorities and recenter myself spiritually.

The map below details my approximate route which spanned seven hours, two towns and almost every type of terrain common to this area of New England. The experience ranged from falling into mud-holes through frozen snow, to scratching up my legs in dense underbrush, crossing a waist-deep freezing river, climbing 50 feet up a maple tree to figure out where the heck I was, viewing a beautiful panorama of the surrounding area from the top deck of the closed-down ski lodge on top of the mountain and on bare-soled sneakers skiing down slopes which had just been in use two days previously. I killed the soles on my old shoes and thought it curious that I never fell once (I fall frequently when actually wearing skis). I met my parents at the base lodge and we went out for pizza. Along the way there were abandoned shacks, partridges flying up in my face, bridges of questionable design & stability, and a cast-0ff crutch on the side of one of the trails. What a day. All pictures are in order of appearance on the trip.

Goshen/Sunapee NH area (click for a more detailed view)

Trails ranging from mixed mud & icy snow...

...to snowy & slick.

Gunnison Lake (aka "The Goshen Ocean") with Mt. Sunapee in the background

Random trailer/hunting camp(?) in the middle of nowhere, literally 2-3 miles from the nearest road.

Should have listened to the little voice telling me that it was a stupid idea to wear low-ankle sneakers.

Some of the trails were washed-out

Falling-down shack in the middle of nowhere on the back side of Mt. Sunapee. The dimensions would indicate that it's primary use may have been for a hermit with an ascetic lifestyle or a temporary camping retreat for a single person. Just enough room for one to lie down in with a small stove and a backback. It measured about 9 ft. by 4 ft. and was just under 6 ft. high.

The stove was sitting outside the entrance, mostly rusted into the ground.

It was high enough that the trees near the top were very short, most of them looking to be 5+ decades old yet less than 15 feet tall.

Cell tower and lodge at the top.

Distant view of Gunnison Lake

Closer detail.

Ski lift

I found the severity of the language in this disclaimer enough to prevent me from taking this trail.

Lake Sunapee at the top right and Little Sunapee to the left

Awesome name for a trail!

The Fungus Among Us

Cementing my position as a nature-nerd once again!!! If you are not a regular reader here you may be asking yourself what the heck sort of person devotes an entire post to fungi. Well, I've given up trying to explain myself, so I'll just say that I find them beautiful and I took many good pictures of them this year. I ran across these ones while organizing digital photos the other day and decided that they would make a great blog photo-post. So cast your votes for the prettiest & weirdest!!! (btw, I would be grateful to anyone who can provide me with common species names and latin names on some of these, please leave a note in comments. This is one of the few areas of nature where I have almost no expertise).

#1. Blue Mushroom




#2. Unidentified brown mushroom

#3. Cool texture on the bottom of another unidentified fungus.

#4. I like to call this one the "Shrek" fungus.

#5. Striated Fungus of some sort, I love the colors.

#6. It looks like a pallid flame, my personal favorite.

#7. Puffball mushroom, Lycoperdon Perlatum - edible, but I wouldn't recommend trying it unless you are versed in how to tell it apart from another common species which looks quite similar and is somewhat poisonous.

#8. Orange Mushroom

#9. Staghorn Lichen, Letharia sp.



Jewelweed, Impatiens Capensis - Yeah, I know it's not a fungus, but it deserves honorable mention because the expressed juices from pulverized stems & leaves can serve as a wonderful topical treatment for some of the varieties of fungi which infests humans & other mammals.

Indian Pipe, Monotropa Uniflora - Again, not a fungus, but it also deserves honorable mention because it is one of the only plants you will find growing around here which does not need chorophyll to survive, it lives as a parasite feeding off of a common soil fungus found around trees.



I intend to have a good pictorial book on fungus species identification by next year, any suggestions? I would at some point like to start harvesting wild edibles (and yes, I know it is dangerous if you don't know what you are doing).