Monday, September 6, 2010

Nature’s yard art

A recent walk into our backyard yielded surprises. Seems like fungi decorated a piece of our firewood overnight.

Bracket fungus adorns a boot-shaped piece of our stash of firewood for winter.

Close-up of the bracket fungus, also called shelf fungus

A few feet away a spider web of giant circles stretched across the path I had intended to take. The yellow and black spider looked twice as big as the inch-and-a-half spider in a June 2010 post.
The spider web artist

Husband Walter suggested gently spraying the spider’s web with water so the web would show up in the setting sun. The sudden shower didn’t seem to bother the spider.
Web plus water

5 comments:

  1. What a spider! Glad it is not in Scotland. Beautiful pictures of the fungi

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  2. Your fungi pictures are wonderful -- less icky than the spider and web.

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  3. These are wonderful works of art by nature. I'm interested in what camera you used as I'm soon to be in the digital camera market and want to be able to photograph up close detail like these.

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  4. @Alice – Thanks for stopping by! My camera is a small Canon PowerShot A590. I bought it in the fall of 2008. I wanted something small that I could carry in a purse. It’s not the smallest, but it fits. I also wanted a viewfinder in addition to the screen on the back, because I can’t see anything at all in the sun. This camera does have a viewfinder, but what you are seeing, of course, is not through the lens and you can’t tell what is in focus and what is not. Also I wanted something that I could get it and all the batteries, charger, etc. for around $200. Theoretically I would love to “move up” to a better camera, but realistically I like traveling light. Now, if I could just find the instruction manual I have misplaced somewhere!

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