A Quick Walk Along the Creek

Some days I don't have time for a multi-hour excursion to a nature site,  but I still crave the sounds of rushing water and the rustling of leaves underfoot when I go for just a quick walk.  That's when I head out to Spa State Park right here in Saratoga Springs and walk along Geyser Creek.  One of the prominent features of this creek is an actual geyser, seen here spouting out of its dome of accumulated mineral deposits.

I follow the path along this creek to where it spills from a culvert in the steep bank.  There's something enchanting to me about creeks and rivers, always flowing relentlessly along on their journey toward the sea.  Geyser Creek will flow into the Kayaderosseras Creek a mile or so away, and the Kayaderosseras will then convey this water into Saratoga Lake, which has its outlet in Fish Creek, which then empties into the Hudson River near Schuylerville, and the water continues all the way to New York City, where it joins the Atlantic Ocean.  I wonder how long that journey would take?

When I turn from the culvert and look downstream, I can see another white dome of mineral deposit, formed by a spring trickling down the bank, leaving massive accumulations of minerals behind.

Here's a closer view of those mineral deposits.

Spa Park contains many mineral springs where a thirsty hiker can stop to take a refreshing taste.  Not everybody enjoys that taste, but I find it interesting.  Each of the springs tastes a little different, some with more iron or calcium or carbon or salt than others, but none contain sulfur, I've heard.  It's obvious that this spring contains plenty of iron, as evidenced by the rust that lines the basin.

Despite the continued warm weather with no frost as yet, very few flowers are still in bloom.  This pretty bunch of asters was the exception.

Mushrooms and More Mushrooms, and More

These past soggy days have kept me close to home, just running out to local spots for an hour or so between rainstorms.  On Saturday I headed out to the Skidmore Woods, mushroom basket in hand, hoping to forage for some of the myriad fungi sprouting now all over the forest floor.  Maybe I could find some Honey Mushrooms or, even better, a nice big Bear's Head fungus.

Did I say "sprouting?"  I think "EXPLODING!" would be a better word for what these big brown boletes were doing.  This one was about the size of a medium pizza.  Could this be the mushroom that's called King Bolete (Boletus edulis)?  I was hoping so, since that species is supposed to be a prized edible. And just one of these was more than enough for a meal.

I broke one in half to look at the flesh, which was snowy white and didn't turn color on exposure to air or upon being pressed.  That was a good sign.    Another sign that this could be the King Bolete was the yellow-green color of the tubes.  Trouble was, though, that this yellow-green color indicated that the mushroom was old, for its tubes are white when fresh and good to eat.  Alas, no mushrooms for supper this night!

In fact, most of the mushrooms I found in the Skidmore Woods were well past their prime, and many of them were being consumed themselves by other kinds of fungi. The process had just begun on this big brown bolete, blotched with fungal infection.

This mushroom was so completely covered and distorted by a chrome-yellow mold, it was impossible to tell which species it was (had been?).

But at least it still possessed its mushroomy shape, unlike the completely disfigured blobs below, which looked more like pink-stained dough than any kind of mushroom.

Ooh , look at this oozy mess, all covered with some kind of gray mold and weeping drops of amber fluid.

So on Saturday, I went home with an empty basket.



Today, Tuesday, the clouds thinned a bit this afternoon, so I wanted to venture out.  But where to?  I usually think of our local state park as a place for golf courses and swimming pools and picnic pavilions, rather than as a place for a woodsy walk.  But then I remembered the park had a nature trail through some old-growth woods off of Crescent Avenue and decided to give it a try.

Turns out, it's a lovely trail through mixed hardwoods and conifers, over little brooks and passing through several clearings shaded by towering Black Walnuts.  Today, the trail was a bit muddy in spots, but not so swampy I couldn't find my way around.  And my oh my, were there mushrooms!  All over the place were these fluffy clumps of white coral fungi, looking like whole families of white hedgehogs out for a stroll in the woods.

I also found several logs that were dotted with the fruiting bodies of Blue Stain Fungus, a fungus that more often makes its presence known by the way it stains rotten wood a dark blue-green.

Well, you could see these mushrooms coming a mile away!  Such a vivid color and looking like nothing I'd ever seen before, either out in the woods or in any of my mushroom books.

I picked one up to examine its structure, noting its free gills, the ring around the stem, and a white cup at the base (not shown here), as well as the yellow-orange color of both stalk and gills.  Could this be the mature stage of the American Caesar Amanita, a mushroom I've seen before only in its button stage?  After looking at many photos on the web, I'm willing to venture a guess that that's what this is. (For an image of American Caesar in its button stage, see my post for 8/30, "After Irene.")

These tiny orange wormy things were sprouting up all over the ground around a rotten stump.  You can see how small they are by comparing them to the Red Maple leaves around them.  Could they be Ramariopsis laeticolor?  I wish I had broken one off to see if it was solid or hollow, perhaps tasted a tiny bit to see if it was bitter or mild.  Then I could make a better-educated guess.

This twisty yellow fungus could possibly be one of the Earth Tongues, or at least I think it belongs to the sac fungi group.  The closest match I can find in my books is Neolecta irregularis, which, as its name suggests, can assume different shapes.  Including this convoluted one.

This lovely apricot-colored mushroom presents quite a puzzle to me.  It's obviously a gilled mushroom,  but not like any gilled mushroom I've ever come across.

I have never seen a gilled mushroom that has a flattened hollow stem like this one.  I sure hope that some mushroom expert might see this photo and tell us in a comment what it is.

Update:  Ruth Schottman has offered the suggestion that this is a species of Hygrophorus, or Waxcap. After searching among images, I do believe she is right and that this is an Orange Gill Waxcap (Hygrophorus marginatus), a mushroom quite varied in coloration.  It's also varied in nomenclature, as it is also known as Hygrocybe marginata and Humidicutus marginatus.


Not everything of interest these past few days was fungal.  For example, I found this Orange-fruited Horse Gentian fully in fruit at Skidmore,  its little tomato-colored berries circling the stalks in tiers.

In lots of low damp spots where Jack-in-the-pulpits grow, their fat clusters of brilliant red berries are much in evidence now.

Lining the Hemlock Trail at Spa Park were thickets of Panicled Dogwood, its snowy-white waxy berries held on hot-pink pedicels. Quite a lovely color combination.

Here's another lovely color combination: a bright yellow mushroom and an equally vivid Red Eft.

This little toad is remarkable for its almost complete absence of color.  Have you ever seen such a black toad?  I would never have seen it if it hadn't hopped onto those bright green leaves.  It was living in a very deeply shaded Hemlock woods where the earth beneath the trees was very dark.  I wonder if toads who live in a sunny, silvery Beech woods take on a lighter color?

Signs of Spring at the Spa

Yes! Yes! YES! Despite the forecast for heavy snow by Friday, this sunny little Coltsfoot tells us that Spring has sprung at last! I found it blooming along a stream in the Saratoga Spa State Park, where I went today to stretch my legs -- which wasn't so easy to do, what with lots of snow still carpeting the woods and sheets of slippery ice where trails climbed the hills.

But along the streams there was open ground, just right for easy strolling and lingering along sun-warmed banks.

I heard Phoebes calling in a Cottonwood tree by a bridge that crossed the stream. A common nickname for Phoebes is "Bridge Bird," since these birds like to nest under bridges. I searched that Cottonwood but could not see that little bark-colored bird, although I did spy these fat glossy buds, all shiny and fragrant with sticky resin.

There were benches along the stream, which would have been pleasant to sit on if they weren't still buried in snow. Oh look, there's a little plaque on the back of the bench.

Somebody must have spent a lot of good times here with Ginger.

I had seen lots of canine footprints in the snow along here, and I wonder if some of them could have been those of coyotes. Something brought down this deer and subsequently ate it.

After seeing those bloody bones in the grass, I was startled to come upon this scene, which looked like gallons of blood had spilled out of the earth.

But that gore-colored stuff was only rust that formed when this iron-rich spring spilled over the bank. If you click on this photo, you can see the drops of spring water arcing out of the spigot.

The Saratoga Spa State Park has many mineral springs (that's why Saratoga Springs has that name), and I tasted all that I came across. Except for this one, called the Geyser. Many summers ago, I used to wade across to climb up on its heavily mineral-encrusted rock, but the water was still too cold to do that today.