Grey Fall at Arcadia 110614

High of 63°F. Sunny.  

I was excited to get out there this week. The temperatures dropped to nearly freezing at night, and we got about 1.25″ of rain. I was imagining a tick-free-fungi-filled-fall-color-hike! Then I got to the trail…

Not much color, but it was still perfect weather for a hike. I found a bit of color right off the trail. This particular area has produced Cinnabar Polypores for the two years I’ve hiked here. You can see the stem that is full of the fungi glowing orange in all the grey.

Here’s a fruiting body of the polypore peeking out from under a leaf. I know, I’ve posted about this same polypore multiple times, but I still love its vibrancy and the fact that it always seems to be fruiting!

Coming out of the woods, there was plenty of coyote scat. This scat looks like dog. I wanted to show this because if you’ve read my previous posts, you’ll know what the fresh dirt is all about. That would be our friends the dung beetles hard at work. I saw fresh dirt piles by almost every bit of scat I saw today. It’s a whole other world under a pile of scat. See Dung Beetle post.

There was a lot of interesting textures in the dried plants and seed pods, but not much color.

This reddish grass is always beautiful in the fall! Finally some color!

Turner Pond has become my gauge of Oklahoma water levels. Today the pond was probably 75% full! Good news for the creatures like these turtles. There was “something” all over the water. It looked pretty funky, but it was supporting wildlife. I remember a lot of vegetation had grown in this empty pond, so it may be breaking down causing the water to look thick and speckled. Just a thought.

Lots of creatures come here to get a cool drink. This particular creature thinks the funkier the water – the better.

A hunter left a treat on the trail by the pond. It wasn’t eaten, so it might have been killed by a domestic animal, or the hunter was interrupted. I didn’t know what it was. It was definitely a rodent, but was about the size of a guinea pig – maybe a bit smaller. It had a big head, a short tail with hair and little mouselike feet. I believe it is a Prairie Vole. I never imagined a vole would be this large. I read up on it a little and learned that it is one of the very few mammals that mate for life. Poor little critter is going to have a lonely loved one. They say that 80% of voles that lose their mate never find a new one.

There were quite a few Puffball fungi in one area. They were packed in very close together on a piece of bark, and had already reached the stage when the spores get released. You can see the greenish colored spores on these puffballs, and the holes in the top where the spores are puffed out.

Here is a side view of the puffballs. They have shriveled up with age, but there is a fresh one coming out at the bottom (with the white interior). You can also see from this side view the mycelium – or the actual fungus, growing in the bark. It looks like white roots, but it isn’t.

To explain it as a non scientist, in a very simplified way (which may or may not be entirely accurate): The main body of the fungi is the mycelium, which is made up of masses of fine threads called hyphae. Fungi have mass numbers of hyphae, which intertwine to make what you see below – the mycelium. It is showing up as a white web or branching system of tiny fungus hyphae. Cool! So what is the puffball? The fruiting body – means of reproduction. Think of them as the flower and the mycelium as the plant.

If you go back up to the orange glowing stick in this post, that is mycelium. That’s about as science-ee as I get. Fungi is super interesting. The largest organism on earth is a fungus. Go watch this video! They explain it much better than I ever could.

ps: ticks are still around