Winter Mushroom Photo Walk

During the holiday season, I took time to explore the woods for mushroom photography, despite the winter's limitations.
Red fall leaves surviving in winter in the south.
Red fall leaves surviving in winter in the south. (view full res)

The holiday season always seems to be such a crazy busy time. Even so, I managed to get to the woods for a few hours over the weekend to try to hunt down some mushrooms to photograph. We are firmly in the winter months now, not our most photographic time of year. At my place we are right on the edge of Zone 8a and 8b, which means we still get the occasional freeze, and colorful plants won't grow until March, but mushrooms can be quite colorful and active all year long. Only problem, we haven't had any rain down here in months so it's pretty dry. I thought the only colors that would be present in the woods this trip would be the occasional mushroom but some of the leaves still had a nice fall color to them. I did manage to find two tiny mushrooms, one I was able to adequately capture. If you are interested in more details about the images themselves you can go to my Small World Flickr gallery. This particular group were all shot with either a macro lens or an extension tube. The mushroom below is between the size of a nickel and a quarter on its top. The little yellow flower below was a little smaller than a fingernail.

Newly sprouted mushroom just rising out of the dirt in the winter months.
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Fungi standing up on a dead fallen tree in winter
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Tiny little yellow wildflowers appear in the winter months.
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A blade of wheat grass blooming in winter
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Red fall leaves surviving in winter in the south.
Red fall leaves surviving in winter in the south. (view full res)