Mushrooms from Above

 After a recent storm I walked out to pick up the batch of small limbs which were scattered about the yard. When I was collecting limbs from the maple by the kitchen I found a true gem, a small section of bark which was covered by tiny mushrooms.

 The individual mushrooms are tiny, perhaps no more than 1/4" across for the largest. This entire section of bark will fit in the palm of my hand. I picked this up and lay it atop our concrete bench for this photo.

 This is my favorite shot of the group. I placed the bark atop the burn barrel, its top deep in standing rainwater. The late day sun was shining. Each gill comes into high relief in this macro shot. The true color of these mushrooms is better seen in the first shot, however. The sun seemed to "warm" the color a bit more than what I was viewing.

This is as close as my camera will allow. The front of the lens was almost touching the nearest mushroom for this photograph.
 Had we not had a storm, had we not had wet weather the day before, had the wind not blown strong enough nor at the perfect angle, this piece of bark might have stayed high in the tree and I'd never have been able to enjoy this sight, dropped from above.
 Just one day later - perhaps no more than a dozen hours, these mushrooms began to whiten and deflate. They quickly dropped to half their initial size and looked bleached. I lay them back beneath the maple.