This small Brooksville preserve is a mushroom paradise right now
I try to refrain from complaining about the weather. There’s nothing that can be done about it, for one thing. Plus, complaining is pretty much a one-way ticket to a bad mood.
But every once in a while, when the weather is exceptionally ridiculous, I allow myself to grumble a few words of dismay. So let’s talk about all this rain we’ve been having, shall we?
It was nice at first — good for the plants. It also saved us from the worst of the Canadian wildfire smoke. But then it started washing away roads and mucking up trails. Day after day of gloomy skies and rain showers has slowly eroded my resolve to remain cheery regardless of the forecast. I’m tired of wearing a rain jacket that sticks to my skin on muggy days. I’ve never seen so many slugs and snails in my life. I miss the sun.
I’ve gotten to the point where my schedule revolves around the weather report. If there’s even a chance of a few hours of sunshine, I plan to be outside.
Such was the case when I visited Ferry Landing Natural Area in Brooksville.
The forecast called for mostly cloudy skies, which sounded like paradise.
I’d never been to Ferry Landing before. It’s one of those preserves that is so small it’s easy to overlook. Covering 23 acres of fields and forestland on the Bagaduce River, it’s home to a one-mile hiking trail that’s marked with blue blazes and maintained by the Blue Hill Heritage Trust.
If you live outside the area, you might consider the preserve too tiny to travel for, but I have an easy solution: Visit multiple preserves in one day. There are several in Brooksville and surrounding towns. That’s what we did.
Ferry Landing has two small parking areas. One is at the end of Ferry Road, right by the water. And the other is on Jones Point Road, about a quarter-mile north of its intersection with Ferry Road. Both provide access to the same lollipop trail (a loop with a trail branching off it).
We — me, my mother, my husband and my dog — started at the Jones Point Road trailhead so we could look forward to visiting the water at the far end of the hike. The parking area was just large enough to fit two vehicles.
I have to thank the rain for one of the major highlights of our adventure: mushrooms. They were everywhere. Fungi love water. Lichens and slime molds like rain, too. So as we walked, I tried to find as many colorful fungi species as possible.
Mushroom identification is something I’ve yet to master, but I saw a few I recognized. I was delighted to spot a beautiful, golden-orange, spotted amanita mushroom. I also found a lovely display of violet-toothed polypore, bright purple along its edges, and a pale cluster of coral fungi bursting out of the leaf litter.
A spotted mushroom grows in the middle of a trail at Ferry Landing Natural Area on July 1, in Brooksville. Credit: Courtesy of Aislinn Sarnacki
Often, to get the best photograph of a mushroom, you need to get down on its level. That means kneeling or lying on the forest floor. As you can imagine, I got a bit soggy, but I didn’t mind — at least until I entered red ant territory. I was bitten just a few times, yet the stinging lasted for at least an hour.
And yes, I know what many of you are thinking: I did conduct a thorough tick check after the hike. Remarkably, I found none.
A bit about the preserve:
Ferry Landing Natural Area was conserved in 1990 when Maine Coast Heritage Trust donated it to The Conservation Trust of Brooksville, Castine and Penobscot, which merged with Blue Hill Heritage Trust in 2014. The trail on the property travels through a mossy forest and visits a few small fields.
I found the trail to be fairly easy, but it did include some roots and rocks, plus a small, steep hill covered in mosses and lichens. To my surprise, most of the trail was free of puddles and mud pits.
At the west end of the trail, near the parking area on Ferry Road, we walked to the shore of the Bagaduce River, which is saltwater, tidal and has swift currents. There we enjoyed a tranquil view of the river, dotted with a few moored boats. Near the shore were the remains of an old building, surrounded by rosa rugosa bushes. Their bright pink blossoms lent a sweet scent to the air.
After exploring Ferry Landing, we planned to visit the nearby Snow Natural Area and Nab Island — another preserve I’d never visited. However, we started the trail and quickly decided to turn around. It was a soupy, muddy mess, and we didn’t want to damage the trail by tromping through it.
Plan B was Snow’s Cove Preserve in Sedgwick, which I last visited in March of 2015. It was much drier. There we hiked about two miles, exploring a loop trail that led us to more views on the Bagaduce River. Together, the two preserves made for a great day outdoors.
And it did rain once on our adventure but it was just a light shower. We also enjoyed stretches of sunshine, and that certainly brought a smile to my face.