Birding Through Glass

Elizabeth Park was slow this morning. It was warm and humid and still. Few birds calling. Fewer birds seen. I happened upon a tiny flock of mainly Bay-breasted Warblers like the one above, but it did include a Black-throated Green Warbler and this Blackpoll Warbler (orange feet). In an attempt to follow the flock I cut through the dry creekbed and happened upon this Chicken Of The Woods fungus ( Laetiporus sulphureus) . Laetiporus sulphureus is a species of bracket fungus (fungi that grow on trees). Its common names include sulphur polypore , sulphur shelf , and chicken-of-the-woods . Its fruit bodies grow as striking golden-yellow shelf-like structures on tree trunks and branches. Old fruitbodies fade to pale beige or pale grey. The undersurface of the fruit body is made up of tubelike pores rather than gills. Found in Europe and North America, L. sulphureus is a saprophyte and occasionally a weak parasite , causing brown cubical rot in the heartwood of trees on which it gr...