Night Adventures

The first official Found on the Trail group field trip was conducted yesterday evening, with great fanfare and much excitement.

Family members asked, "You're going where?" and looked at us quizzically as we loaded up with highly sensitive instruments, meant to record scientific data.  And then, we were out the door!

As you will recall, yesterday's post was on those luscious, bright orange mushrooms called Jack O'Lanterns.  Multiple sources online had indicated that these fungi would glow in the dark.  Eager to see this phenomena, intrepid reader Sarah and myself conducted an investigative foray onto the bike path late last night.

And this, dear readers, is is what we saw:

Yep.  That's it.  Nothing.  Nada.  Zip.  Zilch.

Highly disappointed, we knelt close to the specimens, and peered under their thick, leathery caps.  No glow.

Imagine our disappointment!  Granted, there was a bright moon, and a street light cast its beam in the vicinity, but still.  We had expected something!  After all, their legendary glow is said to have guided lost pioneers home in the dark, in days past.

This glow is supposed to occur along the same principles as the glimmer produced in lightning bugs.  Even knowing this, we could not refrain from placing an artificial light sources under their gorgeous caps in an irrational hope of supplying a needed trigger.  This provided not even a residual flicker, once removed.

However, this photo, taken during the process, is a good example of the sort of glow we had hoped to witness naturally:

Sadly disappointed, and slightly startled by a big, brown creature that ran close by us, we decided to leave.  But first, we took photos to document for the world our devotion to scientific research.  There are almost no depths to which we would not plummet in order to ascertain facts for this blog:

Having concluded our field work, we proceeded to the research vehicle to a soundtrack of our own laughter and neighborhood dogs barking at us suspiciously.  We left the vicinity, confident that we had done all we could do, for that night.  More research will have to be conducted in order to determine the truth behind the alleged glowing properties of this fungi.