Autumn Ends 2023

Kia ora, welcome

May was truly Fungi Month. I spotted some beautiful and intriguing fungi on my tramps. One of my most popular posts on Instagram showed a rainbow of fungi starting with this purple beauty. If you want to see more of what I see, Instagram is the place I post the most.

I tramp with other local Forest and Bird members in a Wednesday tramping group, between us we have some pretty sharp eyes for spotting interesting nature finds. Each of us bring a bit of knowledge and together that adds up to an interesting day out.

A highlight was spotting my first 'hot lips puffballs’ also known as ‘forest prettymouth’, see my iNaturalist entry below.

They are quite small, 1-2 cm across, and are found in beech forest. It pays to look down at the track, keeping an eye on the mossy sides for interesting finds like this.

I recently blogged about some very weird entomopathogenic fungi which I’ve just begun to notice among the many things to be seen on the forest floor. I’d vaguely heard about this kind of fungi before but had no idea how many different species there were. I love learning new things!

My website has a total new look (and platform). It’s still at the same address www.gilliancandler.co.nz and incorporates material from discovernature.nz as well as my nature blog Explore and Discover Nature. Head on over and take a look.

One of the reasons I started this newsletter was to find a way to share news about my books and writing with people outside of Facebook and Instagram. There’s something exciting in the pipeline which I can’t tell you anything about just yet. My next newsletter will have full details.

Meanwhile I want to say how proud I am of my “explore and discover” books, illustrated by Ned Barraud. Amazingly, the first book in the series, At the Beach, has now been in print for 11 years and has sold over 17,000 copies - that’s a lot of children and families who’ve been able to discover more about such an important habitat, especially because around 1000 of these books are in public and school libraries.

Around the world autumn in temperate zones is usually a time for autumn leaf activities as deciduous leaves change colour. But if, like me, you live in an area of mostly native bush that might seem irrelevant. Here are some suggestions in my blog for activities that are relevant to trees across Aotearoa, some of which can be done all year round. https://www.gilliancandler.co.nz/discovernatureblog/2020/05/autumn-leaf-study-in-new-zealand-leaf.html?rq=autumn

By chance my book group pick for May was also on a fungi theme. The Way Through the Woods by Long Litt Woon is a memoir about how learning to forage for fungi helped the author through the grief of losing her husband. It turned out to be a great discussion generator. We were fascinated by the foraging culture in Norway and thought she wrote with great honesty about grief.

There are only a few field guides on New Zealand fungi available and I already have one of two of them. But since I’ve made more serious attempts to learn about fungi, I added A Field Guide to New Zealand Fungi 2nd ed by Shirley Kerr to my collection. It’s packed full of fungi, so far it’s just made me realise how much more I have to learn!

For young children, I found a picture book in my local library My Poet by Patricia MacLachlan, illustrated by Jen Hill. It’s a fictional story based around a child out walking with poet Mary Oliver. A lovely introduction for young poets about finding words out in nature.

For teens and adults, Birdgirl: a young environmentalist looks to the skies in search of a better future by Mya-Rose Craig is a fascinating memoir by a young woman. An avid bird watcher from a young age, she recounts her travels with her family around the world to far-flung places in pursuit of birds. A child of an English father and Bangladeshi mother, she is very conscious of the mostly white bird watching and nature communities in the UK. Still in her teens she set about trying to open up nature opportunities to black teens.