Mushroom Mania in the Great Lakes
Do you know my most photographed nature item is mushrooms? Yeah it’s the top one for sure. My name is Mike and I am addicted to photographing wild mushrooms. Does anyone else want to sound off and admit they are part of the club or is it just me? Check out my photo romp in Mushroom Mania in the Great Lakes from a road trip I took! Mushrooms from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, near Lake Michigan, and the Boundary Waters Region of Northern Minnesota & Canada.
What do I love about wild mushroom photography?
The colors of wild mushrooms blow me away. Sort of like leaves changing colors in the fall only it’s all year long!
The shapes & sizes of them are always unique and nothing makes me feel more bliss in nature than a mushroom grove that the squirrels haven’t found yet.
An appreciation of the small things in the great outdoors.
Tall skinny stems always get me reaching for my camera.
They aren’t safe to eat unless you are a true expert or ready for a possible trip (or sickness) so there’s something a tad “dangerous” or “riskay” about the mushroom that I LOVE!
What do you like about mushrooms?
The Upper Peninsula of Michigan’s mushroom growing season is short so these were in prime season even into late September. I find it fascinating how a purple one is on the trail and around the corner you run into a yellow and then off to the side is a red one.
Find the right hiking trail in the UP and you will find a trail full of so many different colors of mushrooms you will have a rainbow by the time you are done.
Mushrooms are also fragile and can be easily destroyed.
Isn’t that the story of nature, the wild, and our lives in general? Here one breath. Gone the next.
Life is fragile & precious and a mushroom is no exception. One wrong step or one hungry critter and the next thing you know the ride is over.
Our bus never slows down and one day it will stop. The fragility of mushrooms remind me of the beautifully amazing journey called life that we are on.
Hike & walk around Lake Michigan and you’ll find a tad longer growing season but more of the same wonderful colors & varieties of mushrooms.
Where’s a place in the world that you have seen incredible mushrooms?
OR
If mushrooms aren’t your thing what’s your favorite flower, algae, or fungi?
Below are four of my craziest looking mushrooms I found in the Great Lakes Region!
I honestly find mushrooms beautiful to see in nature and I love the way they turn out on photos after the adventure is complete.
What else can we find joy in the outdoors that we might possibly miss? For me the more I keep my eyes open on the trail and in nature the more I notice. My mushroom maniac phenomenon is something new.
I look forward to see what I fall in love with next on Planet Earth.
What do you like about mushrooms? Thanks for reading this possibly strange blog.
No mushrooms were taken prior to the writing of this post :)!
Because Adventure Feeds the Soul,
Mike R