Monday, 31 October 2011

It's all about scale(s)

Each evening thousands of rooks and jackdaws fly over my house on their way to an overnight roosting spot about 3 miles away. Yesterday they flew over just as I was putting the camera into the car and I snapped this shot of some of them:

Swarm of rooks and jackdaws heading for roost
I thought then that they could easily be mistaken for a swarm of midges.

As soon as I parked the car at the hedgerow, I looked up and saw a cloud of midges:

Cloud of midges.
And I thought to myself that they could easily be mistaken for a horde of rooks and jackdaws. It's all a matter of scale.

Halfway along the walk I spotted this scaly mushroom on the rear bank of the ditch:

Shaggy Parasol - Lepiota rhacodes
A quick look underneath showed the large double ring and the cream gills:

Shaggy Parasol - Lepiota rhacodes
I'm making a spore print, but I have no doubt that it's the Shaggy Parasol - Lepiota rhacodes. Again, it's all a matter of the scales.

The underside of the mushroom was home to dozens of microscopic insects, and I got a decent shot of this Springtail before it ran for cover between the gills:

Springtail
Scale? The Springtail is about 2mm long.

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