Freeloaders

Every time I go up the Matakitaki west bank, I take a photo of the bracket fungi growing on the beech trees, but I always find something more interesting to blip.

Just as well I took some today because, for the first time in a year of trips up there, nothing else I took was worth keeping. I seem to have 'just' missed a decent shot of every bird I saw, got raindrops on my lens that distorted my focus, had branches move in the wind etc etc.

So today I'm finally posting a beech trunk showing all the freeladers. Mosses, lichens, fungi and even ferns. Poor tree, I don't know how it continues to grow as it seems there is a lot drawing on it's energy.