New 'shroom Spot

When we lived in Edinburgh we had a few regular mushroom hunting spots, which we would start visiting a lot at this time of year, and for the next few months. One particularly awesome site was a commercial forest that, sadly, had a huge swathe felled not long before one trip - the disappointment and feeling like we'd lost something was truly palpable.

Anyway, post move we hadn't managed to get out on a hunt last year, seems my latest photos in a fungi folder are from October 2021! Rectified that with a trip to a nearby wood that we'd passed, which seemed like it might be quiet, and which is a similar commercial forest to the one we lost. That fate likely awaits this site at some point as well, but for the time being it was worth trying out.

And it turns out it's a cracker. Mushrooms all over the place in certain bits, including a few big Ceps (with evidence of others that hadn't been found by anyone or anything until they'd gone way too far over). Stroganoff for dinner!

(the main shot obviously isn't a Cep, and it's been so long since we've been out that I've forgotten the name of this little red-capped fruit, but the biggest Cep we found is in the extras).

p.s. I'm posting this the day after, so you can be safe in the knowledge that we're still here - one fungi foray, with a guide, that we did years and years ago the tip was to basically learn one mushroom absolutely inside out, so you were 100% confident, then move onto another. Ceps are easy, because they're so distinctive, but also because they're a bolete, and the boletes that are best avoided tend to be marked out by red or orange stems. The other benefit is that Ceps are one of the tastiest mushrooms you can get, so an excellent starting point. Hedgehog mushrooms are similarly virtually impossible to mistake for anything else, and make a great addition to a meal.