Summer is here.
The first half of June has passed. Platterful mushrooms and Oysters were around, as expected. Somehow it seems I always stumble upon Oysters when they have already past the stage beyond useful.
Platterful mushroom usually arrive as plump, meaty gray mushrooms of a medium size. This year, despite quite wet weather in Southern Ontario, mushrooms seem somehow stunted and almost all of them had broken a cap, showing white a fleshy inside.
I was expecting to get at least a small crop of Crown Coral (Clavicorona pyxidata), but instead Golden Coral shows in decent numbers. It is worth mentioning that some golden corals are poisonous, so gathering for eating purposes requires some experience.
Of course, summer is the season of Chanterelles and Boletes. Checking some of my spots revealed the start of chanterelles. Nothing worth picking yet, but I will revisit the same spots in a few days.
I was a little bit surprised to find a small cluster of two-colored boletes this early in the season. There was some damage from slugs, but mushrooms were almost totally bug-free. Of course, they ended up in my frying pan.
All this wet weather and heat lured out a lot of different creatures. I managed to take some photos and created a small gallery of my encounters.