It is a common knowledge that mushrooms and rain go hand in hand, right? Well, this summer in Southwestern Ontario it does not seem to be the case. I did not check any official statistics but I am pretty sure that there was not a 3 day period without rain.

After quite disappointing start of the summer with absence of any significant growth of chanterelles, I expected boletes, puffballs, rusullas and milky mushrooms (especially orange milky mushrooms) to make up for that. The reality is quite different.

Up to this day puffballs are almost completely absent. I did not find a single giant puffball yet. Rusullas are rare and far between and therefore almost always attacked by slugs and bugs.

As far as lactarius goes I did find several Lactarius volemus and handful of Lactarius hygrophoides,  but certainly not enough even for a single meal.

Retiboletus ornatipes is present in significantly smaller numbers than usual, but still enough to collect a decent meal if you really try.

The one mushroom that did finally show up is oyster mushroom. Over the course of several days I found many small and medium growths, mainly on logs, but some on the living, upright trees, too. I would like to point out that oysters do not depend on rainfall. They take moisture from the wood itself.

There was some spectacular LBMs and bracket fungi around. Several of them were new to me and I am still trying to determine exact species.

The rain did lure out a number of newts. They are smallish, but if you pay attention they are out in many spots.