July forest encounters: 12 #macro etudes in the mossy jungles

This weekend I visited my summer house and had a walk to the local pine forest (we came with bags to dig up some forest soil, but thats another story). Of course, I took a camera with me to photograph everything interesting, all the beauty that we will see along the way.

We had a pleasant walk and no one bothered us. Fortunately, the mosquito season had long since passed - we also encountered them, but in tolerable quantities. In addition, my wife equipped herself with such an anti-mosquito cape, which proved its effectiveness. There was a large harvest of ripe blueberries in the forest - we kept stopping here and there to pick a few particularly large berries and transport them directly into one's mouth :)

Fields of moss, huge plantations, mossy jungles. There is life here - but it is hidden, deep-sinking, not so easy to notice - even if you kneel down and stare at a small spot of this jungle.

The ones I encountered most during my walk were frogs - they jumped out from under my feet in swarms. But when it sits motionless... you never notice it until it moves. Frogs are masters of mimicry and immobility. Admit it, would you have seen the frog in this photo without a hint?..

While sitting on my knees and photographing a frog, I noticed a sawfly beetle. It feeds on pine wood and is a forest pest... but it is very beautiful!

And this moss dweller was not hiding. We noticed each other at the same time, at a distance of 1.5 meters - I stopped and, frankly, got scared. The snake also noticed me, got scared, and before I had time to take one frame, it began to move in the opposite direction from me. There is one key question here: who did I meet - a grass snake or a viper? In the first case, you don’t have to be afraid of anything, but in the second... it is better not to make any sudden movements and peacefully retreat at maximum speed. Various guides answer this question like this: to distinguish a grass snake from a viper, you should pay attention to the shape of the head, pupils, pattern on the back, general build. Grass snakes usually have an oval head, which smoothly passes into the body, they have round pupils and often yellow spots on the head. Vipers have a triangular-shaped head, its head is clearly separated from the body. Vipers have vertical pupils and a characteristic zigzag pattern on the back. The color of the viper can be brown, black, gray, with a copper or reddish tint. Grass snakes are mostly black and their spotted pattern is much weaker. We get such advice... and now tell me, WHAT COULD YOU SEE, having met this snake in dark bushes? What signs?! The only one that I saw was the dark color and the absence of a clear pattern on the back... but vipers can also be dark black.

On the way we also came across a few mushrooms - but we managed to collect less than a handful, not even enough for a quarter of a plate... A few russula and two tiny puffballs.

And many mushrooms have already been found before us! :)

Let me round up my blog here. See you next time!