Photo Journal | Scottish Borders
In a world where we are often rushing about, it can take a real conscious effort to pause, slow down and look at what is actually happening around us. One of my favourite ways to force myself to stop zooming about at 100mph is to grab my camera, head to the woods and go mushroom hunting.
According to gene analysis, it has been debated that fungi have populated land on earth for around 1.3 billion years. These resilient organisms create a complex network with their hyphae (fungal threads) connecting to plants and trees under the ground, communicating potential threats such as insect attacks and diseases. The hyphae feed in the soil and swap any extra nutrients they collect for sugars from the surrounding trees.
There are around 15000 known fungi species in the UK and I always enjoy finding new ones I have not encountered before.
Fungi are the grand recyclers of the planet and the vanguard species in habitat restoration.
Paul Stamets
The ghost of the forest…
I never seem to be too far from a bird of prey on my adventures, and during this particular outing looking for mushrooms it was clear I was walking a path through someone else’s home. You may be lucky enough to hear them but most people will never see them in the wild…the goshawk (Accipiter gentilis), one of the UK’s most elusive raptors.
Here’s a photo of one of my own goshawks that I flew for many years, named Elwyn. You can clearly see his beautiful tail markings in this image. And you may notice his somewhat strange, flat looking beak. He was a rescue bird who came to me with almost no top beak so has always sported a quirky shaped beak – however he had heaps of personality and soon became the star of my avian team and an incredible hunting companion.
