We planned to visit the fish hatchery and then return via a trail on the east side of Great Pond. Clouds erased the glare of direct sunshine. Colors are more vivid.

Mark had his camera and started shooting when we reached Westbrook Pond. With no wind, the pond surface was a mirror. Two pair of swans became of metaphor of peace. Mark said, “I know it’s a cliché shot, but me shooting anyway” Mark takes RE-MARKABLE photos. I heard the click of his telephoto several times.

We crossed under Sunrise Highway providing contrast to what we would experience a half hour later. It is strange being in a natural setting with traffic whizzing by. We first stopped at a meadow.

Click click while I identified purple top grass and surveyed the vast open tan expanse thinking how this was a common sight a century ago. Here, the meadow seems like a museum artifact. There’s not another one like it anyplace. This is why it’s called a preserve.

Heading up to the hatchery, the understory of low bush blueberry looks like a brush fire. Again, a unique opportunity to see what Long Island was like years ago. It saddens me that so much of such  scenery is gone. South of us, people drive cars at 60 MPH passing the astounding beauty we observe. Click click.

The hatchery is Connequoit River water. It controls water to raise trout.  I note the flow of water down a channeled canal by fallen leaves rushing past. I hear to tumble of water over a small dam into a long pool with trout. “Mark and I marvel at the large trout beneath the water suddenly trashing beneath the surface in a boil of turbulence. Click click.

Mark inspects the upper pond, noting “It’s raining.” It is very light rain with drops that create transient circles on flat water. On this placid palate I am sensitized to the moods of water. In the ponds water looks black. Below the dams, the tumble, bubble, snap, sizzle to falling water. In a sluiceway at the south edge of Great Pond, a vigorous flow in a “V” shape as it moves into the estuary.

Soon after we begin heading south, Mark reads a sign “Artisian Water Site” It took me a while to figure out what this was. During the Sportsmens Club era, workmen dug a hole that reached the ground water table. Concrete bulk-headed channels were constructed to direct the standing water toward the river. This provided to river with a fresh influx of cold water which in turn permitted more trout fishing sites below the hatchery. This project has fallen into disrepair.

I remarked that this would be a great place to conduct a writing workshop using the large room in the main clubhouse as a shelter for the writing class participants.

Moss has awakened with cool weather and water after the long summer drought. It has a variety of green hues along a charming narrow trail that reminded me of a tunnel. Bushes and trees overhang this trail created a bower effect. Somehow, I felt more secure in these long, narrow tunnels.

I collected four fungi along the walk. While Mark took photos from a fishing platform, I found a BIRCH POLYPHORE. This is a bracket fungus that looks like a colt’s toe. It was the easiest to identiy of the four fungi I collected. I like to spend time at my desk at home trying to identify new species. It is a challenge. In this case, the birch polyphore looked exactly like its picture in my fungi book. For many fungi , what plant they grow on provides an important clue to its name. In the book, this fungi lives on dying or dead White Birch trees. Here’s what the book says:

“…fleshy, tough to hand. Smooth, whitish cap with inrolled margin.”

The first bracket fungus I collected was strongly attached to the tree and I had to bang it off. Once again, the book photo left no doubt as to its name TINDER POLYPHORE. The term polyphore refers to the underside. Rather than long, slender gills, it is covered with  thousands of tiny pores. The book says “woody, hoof shaped, Brown pores, hard, horny, thick crust on dead trees. This common, hoof-shaped conk is known in Europe as “Amadou”, and has been used athere for centuries as a kind of punk wood for the quick ignition of firesd. It has also been used in the cauterization of wounds.”

The third fungus left me unsure. ORANGE MOCK OYSTER has an orange to buff cap with inrolled margin and orange-yellow gills. It grew on coniferous wood. But It was stuck when I came to the sentence “This species is not known to be poisonous, but it tastes as bad as it smells. “ I tasted and smelled nothing! Perhaps this one is too old to smell.

he fourth bracket fungus may be TENDER NESTING POLYPHORE: “brownish pores” – yes;   “5 “ cap”  -yes; “ochre to tawny brown”  – yes; “finely hairy or smooth”  – yes;  “Drying hard”  – yes

Spore print, white – don’t know??

I put this fungi on a piece of black paper to allow the spores to drop to see their color. This might clinch its identification. The book gives more information about the spores for which a microscope is needed. Now I have an excuse to buy a microscope.

I am awed by how thin, almost microscopic mycelium ( fungi threads) can work their way under the bark of dead or dying trees to produce there large, hard, perpendicular brackets on trees. They look like hand or foot holds on climbing apparatus. From a tiny beginning to an explosion of matter is astounding to me. Here is the Universe big banging in miniature. This is recycling in action. Nothing goes to waste in nature. Fungi are the transition team from tree to soil. Right here in this preserve, I am seeing three of the four stages in this cycle”  tree, fungi, soil.

Without fail, I always learn new things after an outing. I am not an avid reader. My learning is boots on the ground. Give me a mushroom and a book, and I’ll get back to you. What use is the stuff I have learned? I simply want to know. After my mother dies, I blamed myself for not knowing her as well as I could. I’ve adopted another mother, and I woun’t let this happen again.

November 9, 20176