I was reading today that the quality of photographs you can take with today’s mobile phones is nearly as good as with expensive cameras.   I did not have my camera with me when we went for a walk near the Clootie Well at Munlochy in the Black Isle, but my phone came up trumps that day when we came across this lovely little mushroom.   I am sure there must have been fairies about, but they were hiding.

A search on the internet produced the name.   I have never taken much interest in fungus before, but I thought I would try and see if I could identify a few more.   On that same walk I found another type, “Penny Buns”, I think.

I had nearly forgotten about my fungus walk in the Munlochy woods until today I saw a clump of great big mushrooms behaind the telephone exchange in Hatton.  As big as tea plates they were, and very distinctively patterned.   Time to get down and personal to photograph the beauties, this time with my expensive camera.   Shaggy Parasol (macrolepiota rhacodes), I think.

My father-in-law was a great one for gathering mushrooms from the woods to eat.  He had been brought up to it in his native Poland before the war, and he seemed to know what was good to eat and what to avoid.   I have never learned, and do not have the courage to try.  I wonder if the Polish people who have recently come to live in the north-east still have the mushroom knowledge?