Last day of summer

The hunting trip on Saturday was possibly the most rewarding and at the same time frustrating in the entire season.

Rewarding, because -

Two beautiful (almost) maggot-free specimens

The two ceps were right at the forest entrance, and together weighed about a kilogram. Now, after such a find any mushroom hunt is automatically declared a definite success. However, a hunt is not a hunt if it only lasts a few minutes, so the two beauties went in to the basket and the hunter pressed on.

After THREE HOURS of checking a hundred possible mushroom spots along a roughly 6 mile stretch of forest path, there was finally another find. Two amethyst deceivers. If you know what they are, you'll be laughing your sides off. Because, they are very nice edible mushrooms, no doubt about that, but it takes several hundred of them to fill a very small pot. Coincidentally, that's the numbers in which they normally grow, but I found TWO. Right, going on...

Using the convenient shortcut I found last time, which was then full with bay boletes, I only managed to spot these. And I can tell you, when I bother to take out my camera to snap non-edible mushrooms, things are not going well.

They looked so promising from a hundred feet away... disappoint

Sulphur tufts! Rather pretty and abundant, but bitter, inedible and even toxic according to some reference guides. The hunt was quite clearly over. Tired and frustrated, I planned the shortest route to the bus stop. However, two minutes later I stumbled on a faint path, at the entrance of which there were these:

Twins! (Actually, half-brothers)

Unusually, they were growing only a couple of feet apart, under the same birch tree. This hinted that the path beyond could hold more pleasant surprises, so on I went, even though it was only just going in the right direction.

After two more minutes, another most welcome find. A saffron milk cap! I almost gave up on them this season, but they were not gone, just a couple of weeks late.

Saffron milk cap. Long overdue for species highlight!

After that, many more saffron milk caps and brown birch boletes, as well as a few slippery jacks, and, for the finishing touch, a great chanterelle spot.

Chanterelle surprise!

In the end, the basket was almost full, so initial frustration was more than compensated by the last hour or so. The complete spoils are below. And what did I do with this haul? Come back tomorrow to find out!

Left: brown birch boletes (there really were a lot); top left: one bay bolete, badly eaten by slugs but still edible, next to it - an orange birch bolete; top: three ceps; top right: saffron milk caps, mostly maggot-ridden but still got enough flesh from them to be worthwhile; bottom right: slippery jacks; centre: chanterelles;
bottom left: a couple of wooly milk caps and cracked boletes, just for spore prints;
the two purple "worms" at right centre bottom are the two amethyst deceivers.