Deviation Actions
Description
The Fly Agaric is one of the, if not the most iconic mushroom you could come across. It's widely known for it's deep red colours and white dots. It's represented everywhere across the world, from fairytales to christmas cards.. but it grows in a rather specific environment. It grows on sand grounds, near the roots of birch trees, pine trees and sometimes other trees, often in a symbiotic relationship.
All of which are not represented naturally in my local environment, with it's mainly deciduous forests on clay ground.
Autumn mainly brings fungi in terms of photography subjects, and many types of fungi can be found even before the meteorological or official Autumn starts.. but not the iconic Fly Agaric. Hoping to somehow come across them for several years and failing to do so, made them a very desirable photography subject in Autumn for me.
So I was very happy to be able to photograph my first Fly Agaric just 5 days ago, after being tipped of it's location, which wasn't too far away. There was just one small Fly Agaric hidden in the bushes underneath a tree in an entire forest.. but I managed to take good shots of it! So that was a success, shortly after managing to photograph the European Kingfisher too, another one of my most desirable photography subjects. I also photographed the Super Bloodmoon that same night.
I knew now was the time mushrooms start to appear everywhere, and I knew a region a bit further away from home with the right kind of environment where I had taken land and water-scape photos before; sand ground with birch- and pine trees everywhere. So after a bit of research I found a photo a forester took with coordinates included, 3 years before. I entered those coordinates on Google Maps and pinpointed the exact location where he had taken the photo.
Knowing the Fly Agaric often returns every year, I visited that place; a small forest with a sand trail in between two lakes. When I got there I immediately saw a small Fly Agaric already! I took some photos only to find several more in just a small space. I was very happy to finally find several of them and being able to photograph them. I brought a tripod which I had never really used before when going out to take photos, which worked surprisingly well too.
Later, when I reached the sand trail in between the lakes, I was basically stunned.
There were many birch trees on the sides of the trail with what must've been a 100 Fly Agarics in between them! I didn't even know where to start but started to work my way to the end of the path taking many many photos. I completely lost any concept of time, but I must've spent hours there. (At the end of the trail, just a meter away was another type of forest with different trees and clay ground, and there were NO mushrooms to be found at all.. isn't that crazy?)
I came across another photographer who told me she had been there 2 days earlier, but no mushrooms could be found at all then. Mushrooms can literally come and go within a day and there were plenty now! The next few days are about to be very sunny with frost at night.. which means the Fly Agarics and other mushrooms won't stick around for too long too. Besides, when I arrived people were working on closing off access to the forest by placing fences for a big event too. So I visited at the exact right time! 
The result of all of this, are beautiful photos of my most desirable photography subject in Autumn; the Fly Agaric, also known as the Fly Amanita or Amanita Muscaria. And I'm very happy I had this opportunity!
I hope you'll enjoy these photos and the story that goes with it too!
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