where are they all

It's mid-October.  And by now we should be seeing real signs of autumn, among them the appearance of mushrooms.

By this time last year, we'd seen and documented literally hundreds on our nature walks, without having to really look that hard.  But this year it's all different, with hardly any to be found no matter how hard we look.

I put it down to the topsy-turvy weather we've had this year.  Following a reasonably nice June, we had a July and August dominated by rain and dull skies.  Then, just as autumn should be starting to warm up (pardon the pun) we had a late period of scorching weather.  This I think has confused the fungi into thinking it's still summer.

a solitary mica-cap mushroom
Fujifilm X-H2, Laowa 65mm f2.8 Ultra-Macro
1/20th of a second at f2.8, ISO 125
tripod, self-timer release

And even now, as I write this on 9 October, it's over 20 degrees Celsius outside.  Really warm for this time of year.  In fact, I really can't remember temperatures like this in mid-October ever.

Global warming is an undisputed fact.  But one that is sadly falling on deaf ears.  As long as western politicians see it only as an issue that faces poorer countries such as Bangladesh it won't be taken seriously I fear.  Not until it's too late, which some scientists firmly believe it already is.

I remember being told back in the 1980s that global warming would turn our climate here into something more Mediterranean and thinking won't that be nice.  Well it isn't.  I want normal back, if it's at all possible.

-------------------------------------------

To take my mind away from the weather, I decided to listen to all Queen's studio albums (yep, all fifteen of them) and rank them to arrive at my favourite album from my favourite band, and you can watch the video (and find out which album topped my list) just by clicking on the video below...