Turkey Tail tree fungus

The turkey tail tree fungus is an interesting colored and textured tree growth that breaks down dead and dying trees. This example is probably the best that I had seen on that day. Not that I went our specifically looking for tree growth. I actually went out in search of a red fox, which incidentally I never did see.

Well the trip for the most part did not go as I had planned, I had planned to capture an image for my gallery of a red fox. I was told that there was several sightings of this red fox. Now I will give you that a red fox is rather elusive but I figured that since the sightings were by people I know and that they all had seen it that it should not be that big of an issue for me to as well.

I packed my gear and off to Logan State Park in Logan West Virginia. Which was about an hour drive from my house. When I got to Logan State park I had talked to a game warden and he assured me that the fox had been coming out and which mountain it was coming down and it had a den on the north face of a certain hill. So me in my infinite wisdom (yeah right) decided to climb up the mountain.On the way up I stopped to rest about a two hours hiking up the mountain. I hadn't seen anything but a few squirrels. Stopping by a tree I saw this weird growth, the one you see above. I decided that since I hadnt really seen anything interesting except this and a single elm leaf on a sapling that I would explore this for a few minutes. I captured the above image as one of several shots I took trying a few different things with the camera. The texture shape and color caught my attention. My first thoughts were it does somewhat look like a turkeys tail. About the right colors for it as well. So after capturing a few shots I continued on my trek.

Three hours from the bottom of the hill I got to the top of the mountain to find out that either the dnr agent was wrong about the mountain or it was already gone for the day which was now quickly turning into night. No fox no deer a few bear tracks and the sun was quickly going down. It was decision time do I try to follow the trail back down (which will take several hours) or do I do what was affectionately known as the "hill jack slide" down the mountain. I chose the hill jack slide. Why you might ask, well remember it took 3 hours to get up there and following a trail in the dark for several hours was not my idea of a good time. So here we go I began to take a stance that somewhat looked like skiing sideways and leaned back putting my weight mostly on my rear foot gear now stowed in my backpack and slid down the mountain which was about 3/4 of a mile high.

With the exception of some wild rose bushes the slide was uneventful. Fifteen minutes later, at almost dusk I reached the bottom of the mountain. Note to self bring a flashlight and allow extra time to get to and from my shooting location preferably with some daylight. Truth be told sliding down the side of a mountain is not exactly the best idea, you can break an ankle very easily slip and get hurt or a host of other things I really wish not to think about..

The trip was not a waste though I did get some pretty interesting images. The turkey tail happened to be one of them. I suppose that when you are hiking looking to take an image of a specific thing be aware of whats around you. Some great images are captured with one thing in mind and finding other things as well.

To see this image in our photo gallery click below:

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