This post has a lot of fungus in it. I’m not sorry.
It was an August morning with a very reasonable temperature, so I decided to go for a hike. I found Piney Creek Nature Preserve on AllTrails, thought it looked good enough and drove an hour to get there. The trail itself wasn’t the highlight of my visit. It wasn’t that difficult and there was only one very annoying stream crossing that would have not been so bad if it hadn’t rained recently. It was a fairly normal trail. However, it was the perfect place to do some macro photography.
I’ve recently gotten really into macro photography for some reason. It really started while taking spring flowers with my cell phone. Since then, I’ve been using my new Canon to do some fancy pictures as well.
Piney Creek Nature Preserve is located southeast of Chester, Illinois. A gravel road takes you through an Amish or Mennonite community to a random parking lot in the middle of nowhere. Then a short, mowed trail takes you to the main forested loop of the trail.
Jana Irving I got distracted here by all the types of wildflowers.
Jana Irving Some sort of thistle.
Jana Irving I somehow did not get eaten alive by chiggers on this trail.
Jana Irving Some kind of dogwood.
Jana Irving I didn’t even notice the caterpillar on this plant until I looked at the photos after I got home. Happy accident.
Jana Irving This bee did not care that I was near it.
Jana Irving The only bridge, unfortunately.
Jana Irving First of many mushrooms.
Jana Irving One of the easy water crossings.
Jana Irving Some sort of slime mold, I think. Maybe, Red raspberry slime?
Jana Irving Luna moth.
Jana Irving Fungi is really hard to identify. Google gave me a ton of different options for this one.
Jana Irving Some sort of Amanita. They are mostly all poisonous.
Jana Irving Adorable Russula.
Jana Irving I have no idea how this picture turned out considering the weird position I was in to get it. Had to walk through a stream after this.
Jana Irving Is it supposed to be fuzzy?
Jana Irving Cute little thing.
Jana Irving Cute but probably poisonous.
Jana Irving There were also some pictographs and petroglyphs along the trail.
Jana Irving A deer, probably.
Jana Irving Luckily it was easy crossing the stream here.
Jana Irving Last fungus.
The Piney Creek Nature Preserve was a happy find. I expected a pretty normal trail though the forest. It was a good hike and somehow full of fungus.
Check out my next update where I will be exploring Poverty Point!
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