My fungal year 2021 🍄

Happy New Year! Another pandemic year in the bag (yay) and a chance to look at some of my fungal highlights of the year that was.

I do appreciate that this post title does sound like I’m updating people on how my infection is going. That’s not the case.

My first fungi post was during England’s winter lockdown when we had to all stay at home again. Options for fungi photography were not great so I delved into my own wood-wide web. The post was about a favourite subject of mine, lichens on Dartmoor in SW England:

#FungiFriday: Lichens in Dartmoor

January 2021 also turned out to have a little mushroom boom:

#FungiFriday: a winter shroom-boom

Dark times continued through February 2021, but some brightly coloured jelly fungus provided a light in the dark:

#FungiFriday: a light in the dark

Being privileged enough to work from home during the winter lockdown, I spent a lot of time at a computer. Behind me was a yukka plant that had spent the summer months outside. I was amazed (and a bit disturbed) to see that mushrooms were fruiting over my shoulder!

#FungiFriday: when mushrooms grow in your house

As winter drew to a close one fungus stood out in the woods:

#FungiFriday: scarlet elf cup

A dry spring until April came with heavy rain. I finally worked out what common inkcaps were:

Fungi 🍄: spring inkcaps

I gave two lockdown Zoom talks about fungi in 2021, one for London Wildlife Trust (video didn’t materialise) and one for Bell House, a learning charity based in SE London:

In July I found some very nice mushrooms and tried a bit of camera focus-stacking:

Fungi 🍄: amazing woodland unicycles!

One of the few trips I managed to Sussex’s more remote ancient woodlands was in July:

Fungi 🍄: nipping to The Mens

A quick whip round an area of Ashdown Forest in August revealed some early signs of autumn:

Fungi 🍄: summer shrooms in Ashdown Forest

I notice perhaps more deathcaps than I’d seen before when out and about in September:

Fungi 🍄: September deathcaps

A slow start to the autumn fungi season was dominated by these purple mushrooms in October:

Fungi 🍄: amethyst deceiver

One of my highlights of the year was encountering the stunning violet webcap:

Fungi 🍄: mushroom days are coming

At the crossing of October and November I was lucky enough to spend a couple of nights in Dartmoor National Park. It was dripping with mushrooms, a really special experience:

Fungi 🍄: 3 days on Dartmoor – day one

Thanks for reading and for your support in a challenging year for all.

Daniel

Previous ‘my fungal years’:

My fungal year: 2018 ‘shrooms in review

My fungal year: 2015