Dead trees are a common feature of the landscape here. Some have been destroyed by age, some by fungal diseases (ash trees). Some are uprooted by the wind or felled by beavers. Trees regularly fall into the meandering river, which erodes the banks. Dead trunks stand or lie here, covered with moss, colonized by fungi and used by insects. Bats hide under the bark. Sometimes I walk through the forest and hear the loud fall of a large tree.
#nature #tree #floodforest

Yesterday's sunset in the forest, where melting snow left old riverbeds of extinct meandering streams full of cold water. The trees are still bare, but snowdrops already cover the ground, and clusters of flowers hang from the branches of hazel trees, spreading yellow clouds of pollen around them when I brush against them.
#nature #floodforest

The mighty oak is my favorite tree. Its trunk is slanted, making it more accessible to rain, and so it has become overgrown with moss up to a height of several meters. Several species of moss and other small plants grow here. Unfortunately, even though this is a protected area, it is not a no-intervention zone. Logging is still taking place here, and the area around the tree has now been cleared. At least they left some trees standing.
#nature #floodforest #tree #moss #mosstodon

Not moss, but liverworts (Marchantiophyta) are thalloid green plants, one of the oldest and most primitive terrestrial plants in terms of evolution. Lophocolea heterophylla is very small and its leaves are thin and translucent. Found on dead oak wood in a floodplain forest.
#nature #floodforest #macro #macrophotography

#SilentSunday #mosstodon #nature #macrophoto #moss #floodforest

Long spikes of ice crystals protrude from a piece of rotten wood. Beneath them lies the frozen surface of a forest stream.
#macro #nature #floodforest

Creeping moss, Brachythecia, climbs up tree trunks in the forest. In this area, it grows up to a meter high when the trunk is vertical. The more the trunk is inclined, the more rain falls on it and the moss can grow higher. And it retains water. I saw a tree trunk covered with moss ten meters high. The tiny black balls on the tree bark are organisms that I have not been able to identify.
#moss #mosstodon #nature #macrophpoto #floodforest

This helmet fungus grows by the trail on the trunk of a massive maple tree. There's no chance of spotting it when I walk by—it's about one millimeter in size. Today it's cloudy. My eyes are drawn to a white spot. A tiny piece of bird droppings on the bark. Several helmet mushrooms, much smaller and almost invisible, are growing a few centimeters away. My tripod can't reach that high, so I take the photo by leaning my phone against the bark.
#nature #macro #mushrooms #FloodForest

Velvet foot mushrooms, Flammulina velutipes, grow even in winter. They are good in soup, but so small that they are not worth picking and carrying home.
#nature #mushrooms #floodforest