Indiana has been blessed with several amazing displays of northern lights that we don’t get to see very often and I have been figuring out how to photograph them. Witnessing them is awe-inspiring and magical. The display of colors was unexpected.

I had a couple of new visitors to the bird feeders this year and a red-headed woodpecker that I haven’t seen for a few years. I was thrilled to see one again.

A few more long exposure fireworks…

The rose-breasted grosbeak always brings me joy, even the female that was sporting a mohawk in all of her brown glory 🤎 There were three different males this year ❤️🤍🖤

I always love it when the pileated pair come to the feeder. The male seems to love posing 🖤🤍❤️

And I’m pretty sure this is at least the second year I’ve seen this particular male American goldfinch. I recognize the toupee, which is especially stylish this year 💛🖤🐤😆

I took this picture of mycena haematopus - commonly known as bleeding fairy helmet - in the fall and continue to be amazed at the different forms I find of this. To the point that I am not really sure if it’s the same mushroom with lots of variations or a different type altogether. I need to get into the practice of making spore prints to help with identification but I really don’t like to pick or cut anything. My purpose is to document and preserve, but in order to do that, I may need to start spore printing.

This picture has become the cover of the little book I made, mostly for my neighbors, as a thank-you for everyone’s hard work to save our little patch of woods. We were successful in that the developer withdrew their plans to destroy our woods for a three-story town home project. While we are thrilled, we know the fight will never be over even though the last thing we need is more housing in an already overdeveloped area.

To that end, I am going to send a copy of my book to the land owner who gave me permission years ago to photograph in the woods but has no idea of what I’ve documented over the years. Maybe I can convince him to take it off the market. I will also send a copy to the Plan Commission whose members, gratefully, are very much about green space conservation and put the developer’s feet to the fire to be forthcoming about what the real plans were, which were not what they submitted, and to be prepared to save more trees than they said they would “if possible.” It was vague language and the Plan Commissioners picked up on it. So I want to show them, too, what they saved and, hopefully, will continue to work to preserve.

The tubifera below survived the tank and I always love finding the tiny sea creature forms of it. It’s about the size of a pencil eraser. I am not completely sure it is tubifera ferruginosa but it appears to be at least a form of it.

However, in the last couple of months I have found two things that have been surprising finds even to those that are far, far more skilled and knowledgeable than I am. I have sent the first picture of a tiny fungi to everyone I can think of and, to date, no one has been able to identify it. I am endlessly fascinated by the intricate design. I thought it was a tiny mycena mushroom but there was no stem or stalk and the Indiana mushroom expert does not believe it to be one. When I checked it the following day there had been no change in its form and the day after that there was no sign it had ever existed. Most often there will be a withered form or some sign of existence so maybe it was completely eaten by a slug. In any case, there was nothing left to try and examine. It’s still a mystery fungi. ETA: The mystery has been solved! They are butterfly eggs, not a myxo or fungi at all.

The second one is a slime mold I’ve seen pictures of and never thought I’d find in my area - metatrichia vesparium. Not only did I find it, but the second evening that I was photographing it, I found a small cluster exhibiting an iridescence that was apparently quite unusual, so much so that a couple of the experts said they’d never seen it in iridescent form before. Perhaps it only happens for a very short period of time between the plasmodium to spore stage and I just happened to catch it at the right time; I don’t know. But it rivaled some of the slime molds that I see pictures of from the PNW and New Zealand and I did a little internal celebration dance at finding something so unusual.

Those are the moments that make even facing down an angry nest of yellow jacket wasps worth it. I can’t get enough of hunting and photographing the tiny, sometimes nearly microscopic, world of slime molds. Even though I may be in a full beekeeper suit the next time I head into the woods.

I think this one is ceratiomyxa poroides. I’ve never seen it before, although since it just looks, to the naked eye, like tiny white spheres it’s quite possible I’ve walked right by it thinking it was a stemonitis that I’ve already photographed.

Let the slime mold hunting begin!

This year, Indiana was having a reasonably mild winter but then February brought weeks of a polar vortex and with it single digit highs. Because it stayed so cold, whenever it would snow, the snow didn’t melt, which is unusual for us. Then, over the course of two days, between 10 and 12 inches of new snow fell and stuck around for over a week. It got pretty old, pretty quick.

I kept the bird feeders and heated bird bath clean and full, creating and then following the same path through the snowdrifts that were deeper than my boots were high. But my birds were happy. They fluff themselves up to hold in their body heat when it gets really cold and as the winter storm approached, there were lots of puffballs perching on the feeders and branches. I especially loved the bluebirds, who also were oblivious of the air temperature and frolicked in the birdbath like it was 80 degrees.

The polar vortex finally left and we were gifted with a few 60 degree days and I’ve been wearing sandals to work ever since, willing the warm weather to stay. I also took the opportunity to reposition and fortify the bases of the feeder poles, power wash everything, and put it all back together. As I was working, out of the corner of my eye I glimpsed something purple and looked over to see the crocus in bloom all over the front yard. They are the light at the end of the long winter tunnel.

Soon it will be warm and humid, and I will be back to hunting slime molds and fungi, wishing for cooler weather to kill off the mosquitoes. But for now, I will take all the signs of spring I can get, including losing an hour of sleep when the clocks “spring forward” in a week and a half.

You would think I’d have remembered that.

One silver lining is that nuthatches and tufted titmice also love the peanut wreath. Except they can't pull the peanut out whole like the jays can. They peck away at the shell until they extract the peanut, which is still too big for them to eat. I have no clue what they do with it after they free it from the shell but they're pretty proud of themselves and they don’t give up until they've retrieved their prize. I love watching their determination, even if there are already shelled peanuts in three of the other feeders O_o

There are spectacularly iridescently purple slime molds in more temperate states and countries but not in Indiana and some day I will hunt them down. For now, I’m thrilled with this find.

With 2020 being the year of the great pandemic, two shows were canceled so I will only have three chances at it this year. The last show is next week and I’m already beginning to obsess about the weather.

Of the two shows so far, one was a total success and one was barely a success. Here’s to hoping the third and final show brings something new and unexpected.

So far, no head-butting, but I think we are past the point of no return where foraging is concerned since it’s my bird feeders she forages in every.single.day. I think it’s time for a feed trough and salt lick. Whereupon I will have all the squirrels and raccoons within a ten mile radius in my yard. One thing I do not need is more raccoons; they’ve already set up a social club and hookah lounge in my attic and crawl space. They do not need more encouragement.

I can count on seeing activity between 5:30 and 8 in the evening and I am completely fascinated by them. It tickles me that even though their approach to the feeder is always horizontal from one side or the other, when they are finished feeding they shoot straight up like a rocket being launched. I have multiple out of focus shots attesting to this but I captured the one immediately below just as he was about to launch. One of these days I will get the proper lens to do pictures of them justice; meanwhile, you will find me sitting for a couple of hours every evening by the open window where I have set up my camera gear because I can’t get enough of these extraordinary little birds.

So I’ve been going home and opening the window where my camera is set up so that I can block out the world and watch the birds. The orioles are abundant, the baby red-bellied woodpeckers have flown the nest and are visiting the feeders (the male has been all over all of them and is the one that would eat a little suet and then raise his beak straight up and just wait that way for several seconds at a time like he was still waiting on his mama to feed him, but he figured it all out), catbirds are eating as much jelly as the orioles, a red-headed woodpecker surprised me and, much to my delight, has been around every day as long as I have bark butter on the tree trunk, a juvenile male rose-breasted grosbeak stopped by for a few evenings, no activity on the hummingbird feeder yet except for the orioles to use it as a perch, and the starlings have descended like the pests they are to lay the feeders bare within hours. It has been a challenge to keep them at bay (no pictures, I refuse). It’s supposed to be warm with rain this weekend and I am hoping to find some fungi or mushrooms growing in my woods.

Apparently I have a bunch of toddler birds.

The chickadees were slow to return but eventually did so and the bluebirds were unaffected since I left the mealworm station untouched. And yet, I still get the hairy eyeball from the bluebird. Why do bluebirds always look annoyed? It’s like they’re perma-angry even though they are one of the prettiest birds out there. Maybe he’s just taking up the cause for his brethren.

The first two pictures were taken before I put the offending citrus in with the suet and I guess I will be taking it back out this evening when I get home.