The chickens are hatching!

Walking through Great Huntley Bank, the sites of last seasons Chicken of the Woods (Laetiporus sulphureus) were clearly identifiable through their now bleached remains, either still clinging to their hosts or on the ground below. We'd hope that even though the season was still young, we might have come across some, although after an exhaustive search, covering a couple of miles of woodland, it appeared our search would be fruitless and forlornly we turned for home. The friend I was walking with is only back in the country for a couple more days, now living on the other side of the world; he and I had been regular foragers for years, since the late 80's in fact, before his move abroad and it would've been nice if he could've had the taste of home he'd been looking for. So, I asked for help from the woodland Goddess Flidais (pronounced Flee-dish or Flee-dash), offering to help her by collecting some bags of rubbish from the woodland in return; boom, 2 minutes later this fine clump of Chicken of the Woods. Now, some folk may say, 'yeah, that's just coincidence', but I'd like to think otherwise.  The fungi was harvested by my companion, with a big smile; whilst I duly got out a bag to collect any rubbish I saw, and it wasn't long before that bag was filling up. I still owe a few more bags, which I'll dutifully fill; if you make a bargain, you've got to stick to it.