October 11, 2026: Foliage and Fungi

New Hampshire's trees timed things perfectly to have peak foliage line up with the long holiday weekend, and it's a great display this year.  

The west Shore of Lake Wicwas yesterday.

Maple tree in Oakland Cemetery in full dress uniform.

I think we're just about at peak here in the Lakes Region which means leaf peepers have the whole state to enjoy:  early colors to the south, peak here at the lakes, and just past peak in mountains and northward.  This is the busiest travel weekend all year for the state and it may set an all-time record with 4 million visitors expected over the foliage season.

Red Maple leaves

Those who live right here in the middle of it all have the benefit of just looking out the window to partake in the experience.

And when we do venture out, the locals know the hidden, untraveled back roads that pass through secret scenery without the crowds.  We took the back roads up to the Quincy Bog in Rumney where there's a beautiful two mile gentle walk around the bog.  

Quincy Bog

Unfortunately, the day we were visited, there were very few migrating birds to be seen - just a few mallards, though probably well over 100 Canada Geese.

Fall color isn't limited to just the leaves.  Witch Hazel, perhaps the latest blooming of the trees and shrubs, is only now putting out its delicate and spindly yellow blossoms.

Witch Hazel

These won't bear seeds until next fall.  

Late berries lend color too.  

Possumhaw showing off its colors.

I'll stop now with the foliage because I'm overdue for a fungus review.  

A large Chicken of the Woods

I'm not a mushroom expert and can't identify most of them, but I'll name those I think I have right.  What I can say about fungi is that the part of a fungus we see - often called a mushroom - is just a tiny part of a huge organism.  

A variety of amanita

The vast majority of most fungi is hidden underground; the part we see is just a fruit it produces above ground to distribute its spores.  The underground part, called mycelium, connects with other plants in a symbiotic relationship, and is in fact essential to the existence of the majority of our land-based plants.  Without mushrooms there would be no trees and possibly no plants at all.

A recently emerged Amanita is not fully open.

The mycelium is an extensive underground network of threadlike strands that grow slowly and may live for hundreds of years.  The fungus grows around and into the roots of plants, bringing nutrients to them, and in return, the trees provide the fungus with sugars the tree produced via photosynthesis. This explains why a mushroom can suddenly materialize and grow so large in just a few hours - it has tremendous stored energy in its vast underground system which it sends to the fruit when triggered.

Here are a few more of the most interesting of the many fungi I noticed this fall.

Northern Tooth (Climacodon septentrionalis)

This is perhaps a tooth fungus growing on a tree.

Orange Jelly

Next is this diner-plate sized mushroom.

This last one is very interesting and requires more research.  I'm not going to even venture a guess - what do you think it should be called?

That's it for the fungus report.  Moving on to a less enjoyable topic now, you may have see the report about a loon killed by lead poisoning this summer in the Loon Preservation Committee September Newsletter.

This x-ray shows the lead sinker the loon had ingested. LPC Photo.

This male loon, banded on Paugus Bay in 2024, has an interesting history including spending time on Lake Wicwas in the summer of 2024.  The LPC article includes a photo of the loon on Wicwas which was taken on May 6, 2024 and reported in the May 12, 2024 Wicwas Nature Journal. 

The loon killed by lead this fall, as seen on Wicwas in 2024.

The history, which includes hatching two chicks on Pickerel Pond in 2025, is in the LPC newsletter.  To date, seven loons - that we know of - have been killed on New Hampshire Lakes due to lead poisoning.  Thankfully, the two loons remaining on Lake Wicwas appear to be strong and healthy.

Pip and mom are here and doing well!

September 22, 2019: Fall Fungi Fest

It's time for the annual mushroom festival.  The predictions way back in June were for a good mushroom crop due to the wet spring with abundant rain, and it appears to have been accurate.  Some fungi started appearing earlier in the summer, but they really started to kick in around late August.  All the samples below sprouted since August 23rd, with the earliest being the chicken mushroom I posted on September first.

Chicken mushroom, or sulphur shelf

My respect for mushrooms grew a lot when I came to understand that essentially no tree in the forest would exist without fungi to provide essential nutrients to the tree's roots.  And it increased further when I learned that the visible mushroom is just the fruit of a giant organism growing underground.  I'ts like a giant underground apple tree which just sticks it fruit up above ground to let its seeds (in this case, spores) be distributed.  I'll include my best idea as to the identity of any mushrooms I'm willing to take a guess at.

I always marvel at the variety of these interesting and important organisms.

Tiny ones

Purple ones (viscid violet webcap)

Small families

And large families

I love how they can push up through the ground and leaf litter.

Fly amanita

They're often consumed by various animals.

Usually I see little nibbles taken with lots of crumbs left on the ground.  But this looks like some large animal took a couple of big bites.  But who?

Some mushrooms can grow quite rapidly.  Here's a series of pictures of the same fruits I took over the course of several day.

September 9th

September 11th

September 12th

September 15th

And finally, to close out fungi fest 2019, a cute little family of mushrooms that could star in a performance of Fantasia.