Ah! Fishing trips without catching and foraging trips without finding! Relieved to know it's not just me only enjoying sitting on a beach or walking through the woods!
Taking the basket with me is just making up an excuse to stumble around in the woods... There's unfortunately organised groups plundering the saps in our woods. There's other mushrooms we collect, but still. Incredibly rude. Makes me quite sad. In Norway I got more lucky,, small meal for two adults couple of times a year. But I still go out and keep my eyes open 😁
Oh, Don't be discouraged and give up on Dorset mushroom foraging yet! Learning the new area is all part of the fun; and just as you said, it might take years to sniff out the best spots. Keep your nose to the ground and your spirits high, and you'll find fungus, by and by!
Beautiful 😊 I am 5 months Post-partum, and your videos were what I had on to watch when I was up pretty much around the clock with my son as a newborn. My son and I both find your voice and videos really calming and lovely. Thank you for your videos!
So interesting to see you learning about fungi near your new home. It seems like an important lesson for fungi foragers that in a new location a lot more effort is needed. Thanks for sharing how you’re learning!
That was definitely a milkcap in the beginning. Some of the milkcaps are quite good, but most are rather bitter. Even though edible in most cases, not very palatable. I lived in Germany and the U.K. as a kid, then France in my 20's. In my 42 years, I have spent about 20 of them all over, and have foraged in every place I've been able. Currently, I live in eastern Tennessee. I live off-grid on 13 acres on a mountain. In my woods alone I have about 30 variety of fungi. Some I have "cultivated", whereas the rest just show up when they decide to. Love your videos. Cheers.
Inspired after watching this video this morning, I spent my afternoon foraging sweet chestnuts whilst dog walking, them coming home, where I roasted and peeled them before chopping them and mixing with roasted butternut squash, garlic, sage and caraway seeds. Then made some fresh pasta which I turned into ravioli, stuffed with the chestnut mix. When cooked I topped with sage leaves cooked in butter and crispy smoked bacon. I have learnt a great way to prep chestnuts so they peel really easily, and that I make pasta too dry, so got cross when some of it failed, but I was also very proud of what I did accomplish and enjoyed what I'd made. Shame I can't share a photo. Thank you!
Thanks for this beautyful walk in the woods. Excuse the pun, but this forrest is starting to grow on me. At first I just missed your favourite walks next to the meadow and the disused railway tracks, passing the free apples on the pavement next to the doctors office. Seems ridiculous, but I grew to love those walks. But your new neighbourhood is indeed lovely, and I notice a growing affection to these woods. Mushrooms are interesting, even if they are poisonous. So much variety in shape and colour! And such an important job they do in the ecosystem!
That crow at 16:23 sounded like a raven, though I’m always misidentifying through wishful thinking. I go to southern Maine a lot in the US, where ravens have really started becoming abundant not just in the mountains but alongside crows into residential/ agricultural land. A little less so in western Massachusetts, but I have seen a group of them at a local supermarket, but mostly they stay in the mountains. I think they’re not as common in the south of the UK? Maybe I’m mistaken.
Absolutely fantastic to go on a walk with you Mike . most of my foraging trips up here in Scotland are just to reset my mind and soak up the beauty of nature , I seldom come home with much apart from happiness . Best wishes
"LBM", little brown mushrooms, is a genuine class of fungi. Especially for the forager. It's the kind you notice, but are not really interested in. I found that fungi definitely come in waves. I found an absolute abundance of hedgehog mushrooms two years ago. The same spot had nothing at all last year and only a very sparse smattering this year. Last year was baskets of horn of plenty at se same location. This year: absolutely nothing. This year there was an abundance of ceps, once the summer drought let up. Unfortunately I missed it, because I did not trust the little rain to spur the growth; I only found them withering away a few weeks later, dozens and dozens. 17:42 might also have been kuehneromyces mutabilis; you have to take a close look at the stipe to differentiate them. Kuehneromyces has fine brown scales; galerina has silvery strings on the stipe. Kueheromyces is prized as an edible hereabouts; it doesn't seem to be in your neck of the woods; English does not even have a vulgar name; at least Wikipedia doesn't. It's worth learning the velvet shank; they are delicious, and one of the few fungi growing in winter. The texture of the stipe is quite unmistakable. Growing season also hardly overlaps with galerina. Your crows sounded like ravens.
I loved your video this week, especially a realistic view of your arboreal corner of the world. I just learned a word that describes trees that retain their leaves over the winter : MARCESENCE (from Adam Harrington at "Learn Your Land"). then yiur video showed 3 or 4 examples of marcesence, beech, hazel, white oak.
The "try it" idea should apply to Quorn products as well. The mycoprotein they use causes extreme digestive upset for an unlucky portion of the population. (I'm one of those unlucky people.). It was the worst pain I've ever been in, luckily I searched "stomach pain Quorn" and realized what the problem was before I called an ambulance. (Which would've been extremely expensive to do in the USA.)
According to the OED, puck-ball is 80 years more recent than puffball in writing that has survived. Puff-fist, wolf-fist and fuzz-ball are about 30 years older than puffball. Earth-puff has another decade on them, in written form that has survived. However, puckfist may be older than all three, if the single use of poukisthes is the same word, almost three centuries earlier. Though that grew on dung, which is not usual for puffballs. Otherwise, puck-fist is of the same age as puff-fist, so earth-puff would be the earliest recorded. Fist is fart, reflected in the modern Latin/Greek name lycoperdon, meaning wolf fart. Puck is a malevolent fairy.
I was watching SortedFoods' recent video "mystery tin can cooking battle" and all I could think was "I would LOVE to see what Automic Shrimp would come up with in a similar challenge!"
The bird call at 3.00 mins in sounds like a raven, when in the air they're cross shaped & have a longer neck than crows. Chestnut, Stilton, and ale pie mmm!
I love these foraging videos even when you don't get much to take home, they always teach me a thing or 2, I'm not in the UK and the mushrooms are a bit different here in Australia but its still very entertaining and informative, love it keep it up ❤
You are so fortunate to have walking woods like this around your area. Where I live, there are only a couple that are at least 20-30 minute drive away and charge an entrance fee. There are no public woods in my area.
Speaking as a person with many digestive issues, I was trepidatious to try the clouded agaric, but when I did it quickly became one of my favourite mushrooms! Loads of really unique tasting slightly fruity and sweet flesh. Good to dry as well and very abundant when there isn't much else about.
Nice your manged to find, some edible mushrooms for next year, tho' past their prime. Your forest is beautiful as you can view for long distances, unlike ours on Pacific coast of Canada. Ours forests are usually thick impenetrable evergreens on hilly ground. Am enjoying the sound, from your vlog, of leaves and squelchy noises, can shut my eyes and know what's happening - a treat to the ears. Eva's having a grand time!
This was a lovely peaceful video to watch. You may not have taken anything home, but sometimes, the journey of exploration is fun. As for mushrooms in Dorset, the Great Coll wood has chanterelles on occassion. I've seen them there twice in maybe 6 years, but the signs that they've been picked have been there multiple times.
Spoiler alert! Why would you post the fact he doesn’t find anything 2 weeks before most of us see the video…it’s the only comment on the video, so it shows up without even clicking on to the comment section!
Thank you, your video walks in nearby places are super enjoyable for my partner and I, even as an aussie who is constantly scanning the underbrush for snakes!
15:15 The tree is inosculated. Apparently this occurs most commonly with trees of the same species, but can sometimes occur across species. My partner first observed this years ago on a Japanese maple in their parents' front yard. More recently, in a wood near where we live, we have seen a black cherry and sugar maple, both mature, that we believe may be slowly inosculating. It is a fascinating process! 🍁🌳🍁
"Try it, it might be okay" is the easiest way to tell pale milkcap from pepper milkcap! Both perfectly safe to eat, one of them's just super spicy. I'm currently trying to make some into a spiced stock sort of thing. I was queasy about the idea, but was assured by local expert that anything that might be confused with those is bitter or spicy at worst.
Russuals and milkcaps specifically fascinate me in general. Common milkcap is rather poisonous, but close sibling saffron milkcap is a delicacy. The rest ranges from bitter to meh. How?
The bird you hear there sounds like a black crow - they're rare birds, but they can grow rather impressive in size, and have a similar cry to what you've heard.
The mushroom looks a lot like corniferous subspecies of Tricholoma portentosum to me, but it does resemble clouded agaric quite a lot, too. Hard to say without smelling.
Puff balls here grow out of the ground and reach the size of your fist. When they dry out we stomp on them and release a cloud of spores. It's fun for kids and childlike older folks like myself.
15:06 sometimes trees can spontaneously link through a process called inosculation. I guess this could be either a double inosculation or, like you said, one inosculation above ground and one split at ground level that followed from an early damage of the sapling giving origin to two apical growth cones. This second option may seem more likely but, if I remember my plant physiology, the apical shoots should engaging in a winner-take-all contest, so that only one will remain "apical": thus making this hypothesis rather unlikely. Would be awesome if a botanist can fact check me on that!! Also, would there be any good way to check how many individuals we have here conclusively, without doing any genetics?
I'd think the bird is a raven. But i'm not sure at all. I RARELY see ravens at all where i live, even tho its a semi-rural area, but also heavily forested. In 3 years here i think i've seen ONE and i think it sounded similiar. Afaik ravens are usually farther away from populated areas and solitary. And differentiating them just by SEEING them seems hard too. Size is hard to make out from range. One of the bigger giveaways seem to be that crows and rooks are fidgety while ravens are sure and stay still more.
As far as I can tell there's no general technical distinction between crows and ravens, the names seem to be used almost interchangeably for some species. They're all corvids as well so there's no taxonomic distinction. The only context in which the distinction has definite meaning is when referring to a specific species that happens to have been labelled a crow or a raven.
They're all corvids but the UK species mostly have common names that are more specific than just 'crow'. Rooks, for example (which we have in the big trees on our land) are Corvus frugilegus; Carrion crows are Corvus corone; ravens are Corvus corax. When people say 'raven', 'rook', 'jackdaw' etc, they are usually being as specific as if they had used the scientific name - 'crow' is more generic, but even then, people often mean Carrion Crow as distinct from rook, magpie, chough, etc.
It would be interesting to know which tree species are planted in the tubes. I wonder if it's a mono-crop or a well planned reforestation effort that addresses the complexity of soil health.
Have you ever considered trying to grow some mushrooms? I've seen a lot of grow kits for them recently and people growing them in their garden beds. Just a thought as maybe a stop gap untill you find the new mushroom hotspots. Great video as always even without some mushrooms in the basket :)
@0:12 - I haven't ever met a fungi that could be TOO wet. Common kitchen mushroom cakes will often be soaked under water for 24 hours to re-hydrate the substrate after a first flush of fruit. This increased humidity and moisture prompts the substrate to produce a second, generally somewhat larger, flush of fruit. This cycle can be repeated 4 or 5 times baring any contamination issues and good genetics. Wild foraging is not a trivial undertaking for the uninitiated.
Wonderful walk and some great finds, even if not so edible. Sulphur Tufts look amazing in a shotgun fruiting chamber under UV, even if they are certainly not for eating. Like DAY GLOW Rainbows. A neighbour interested in my foraging exploits the other day, asked what THE LAST OF US Cordyceps were all about and 5 minutes later back at home I nearly stepped on the mother of UK ones. They are supposed to be a mere couple inches and this was a BEAST at nearly a foot tall! Had it in a tank for a few weeks but sadly it is now demised. You found awesome Fairy Rings though of such fruiting bodies and a few Chesnuts to Roast Upon an Open Fire, in this season. With Mushrooms, perhaps being the real reason for such season! Look up Eric Dubay and SANTA CLAUS THE MAGIC MUSHROOM! Some good research. I must say I am still laughing over your hot dog wobbler tester 2000 machine! Pure genius!
As someone who has grown into and out of food intolerances throughout my life, testing out the mushrooms to see if you're affected seems like an every day type of thing. (used to have an unpleasant reaction to strawberries, later in life it was cantaloupe, and now it seems to be un-cured pork)
Surprised 😯 that you and doggo 🐶 missed that 2m long dinosaur 🦖 head on the Dorset beach 🏖️ that’s been unearthed today Mr🍤 Thought between you all you managed to cover all the bases with your fossil hunting mudlarking.
There is a lot of good spots where I Iive in Bradford Abbas, just outside of Yeovil. Wyndham hill is a good spot and a nice walk. Underdown hollow aswell.
It's an open sided barn - the woodland, although open to the public, is privately owned and is sometimes used for hunting deer and other game. I think the building is just a sort of shelter to give the landowners somewhere dry to sit out, stack firewood, etc
Regards the agaric, how do or how did people find fungi that's edible, just trial and error? Are there any rules of thumb or constants with foraging? Often in your walks there are large piles of cut wood, who is going to that not insignificant effort and then not making at least firewood? Thanks for the content
I enjoyed this. I'm from Hampshire (Chandler's Ford) but have lived in the Philippines since I had a stroke in 2008. And I miss the time of year you are experiencing very much. As far as puff-balls are concerned, I suspect the 'puck' ball idea is folk etymology. 'Puff' is very old, 'puck' is more Elizabethan. Here's the etymology of puff: c. 1200, puf, puffe, perhaps from Old English, pyf "short, quick blast of wind; act of puffing," from puff (v.).
@@AtomicShrimp Fair enough. But if 'puff' is much older (and I don't know enough to say it is, though it seems possible) it's odd that puff+ball happened later that puck+ball.
BTW I grew up in Chandlers Ford. On revisiting, I was a bit dismayed to discover most of the woods north of Hook Road are closed off these days. That's where I used to play.
@@AtomicShrimp Well, that's often the case. Sometimes it's also because people misheard words - puff and puck sound alike - and apply the wrong one. Rather like "a damp squib" becoming "a damp squid".
How about a trip back to your old haunts at the right time of year. The weather has been totally different this year which may have affected fungi too .
