Fungi Friday - Magpie Ink cap, Pacman mushroom, Puffballs and more

Clare and I went on a walk, Tuesday, late afternoon, to get some exercise in and search for mushrooms. It was the first time Clare walked this particular path that ends up at a 'wild', natural river beach that I have frequented a couple of dozen times in the last handful of years.

The beach can be reached via multiple track though and I had only traveled/walked this particular track once before, weeks ago, with a friend.

It's later in the season now though and we've experienced somewhat cooler weather and rain, as well as a couple of sunny days ( and days off, where Clare and I spontaneoulsy decided to head to the Atlantic, as mentioned and shown in Getting inspired at the seaside or Getting Smarter without a smartphone - Part 3

Before our walk we drove to another river beach, nearer by ( but still about half an hour from our rental house ) and parked the car there. We then walked the 20 minute track to the river beach and - in the end - quite a bit further, also off the beaten track, climbing up hill through brambles and other prickly vegetation. This is pretty much a metaphor of how Clare and I live. We don't follow the beaten track. We often go off-road, take loads of detours and sometimes short cuts. The main road, constructed for convenience, is not the most interesting one for us ( and that's an understatement ).

Unfortunately I have no pictures to show for it. We were too focused on our walking and climbing and the only camera we brought - my li'l GoPro Hero 5 Black action camera ( that I used to used for several of my shoestring film projects from 2016 to 2019 ) ran out of battery, after a while.

I have some cool mushrooms pics to share with you though:

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This is likely to be a young 'Parasol mushroom' but not necessarily the edible normal one. It might be the shaggy parasol...

I don't remember having seen this alien looking specimen before but Clare apparently has. I love its color but it's most likely not edible.

And here's two photos of common puffballs, that we saw growing in clusters. ( the same mushroom as depicted on the photo above this post, starring @clareartista ).

Apparently they are edible when young ( and these should be quite young ) but we decided not to pick them.

Once puffballs grow old, most look brownish and crack open when you touch them/step on them and then puff out a cloud of spores that resembles a bit of sand.

They clearly like to be cosy ;<)

The next one up looked pretty impressive and definitely not very appetizing, no matter how much I like to eat...

I looked it up and it might be a magpie ink cap (coprinis picaceus). The ☠️ icon next to the name seems to confirm my intuition. Don't eat this one.
Clare confirmed this.

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Let me end this post with two pictures of the river beach that we walked to and where we were the only people on this beautiful Autumn afternoon:

I have swam in this river plenty of times but this day the water was very cold. We put our feet in the ice cold water though and waded through it for a bit, until we decided that the current was a bit too strong and it was wiser to return to the river bank.

And - for a bit of a laugh after an otherwise stressful day
_{for reasons I won't get into as they have nothing to do with musrooms}
here's a photo of of a Pacman (Parasol) Mushroom ;<)

I just can't help being a fungi fun guy
It's just the nature of the beast...

Have a great weekend!