Mushrooms and a Robin’s Egg

Some surprises that show up in my yard are worth photographing! The mushrooms that show up where a large tree was removed (probably several years before we bought the house) have appeared several times in the year we have owned the house. They come up in clumps that display different stages of development…then disintegrate to black goo. I saw these one morning when I was mowing….stopped to take pictures before I continued.

The same day I saw part of a Robin’s egg in the mulch under one our maples. Was there a robin’s nest in the tree…a parent cleaning up after a chick hatched? That is the hopeful story I told myself…although I also realized a predator could have found the nest in the tree or elsewhere and dropped the shell after a good meal.

The next day, I mowed the other half of the yard and discovered a stinkhorn had come up in the mulch where our pine had recently been cut and the stump ground up. I guess the fungi are hard at work in the cleanup!