A Little Bit of Forest Magic in the City

In December or January I plan on doing a photo shoot for my portfolio. The forest makes the most sense for me. However, I started to ponder. I felt this tug towards a cityscape. Bridging the calm and the chaos together. In chatting with the photographer I told her it would be a ‘Cityscape Winter Wonderland.’ Which got me thinking about a blog post I started earlier this year. Where the forest magic makes its debut in the city. A reminder if we take a moment to pause we realize there is magic all around.

This past summer I was out walking Billie Sue when something bright red caught my eye. There, growing beside a sidewalk right in town, was a beautiful red-and-white mushroom that looked as though it belonged in a fairy tale.

A Fly Agaric — Amanita muscaria.

I had to stop, admire and of course take a picture.

What struck me most wasn’t just the mushroom itself. It was where I found it. This wasn’t deep in the woods or along some quiet forest trail. It was growing in an ordinary patch of grass beside a sidewalk and fence.

At first, it seemed completely out of place. Then I noticed the birch trees on the other side of the fence.

🍄 Maybe It Wasn’t So Out of Place After All

Fly Agaric has a close relationship with certain trees, including birch. Rather than simply growing near them, the fungus forms an underground partnership with their roots called a mycorrhizal relationship. The fungus helps the tree access water and nutrients, while the tree supplies the fungus with sugars.

Although I couldn’t see what was happening beneath the ground, those nearby birch trees offered a pretty good clue as to why this little bit of forest magic had appeared beside a sidewalk.

✨ The Mushroom of Fairy Tales

With its brilliant red cap and scattered white patches, Amanita muscaria may be one of the most recognizable mushrooms in the world. It’s the quintessential fairy-tale mushroom—the kind we see beneath fairies and woodland creatures in storybooks and fantasy art. However, seeing one unexpectedly in the middle of everyday life felt a little different. It felt magical. For a moment I am transported from the sidewalk to the forest with the fairies and the woodland creatures. It was truly a reminder that the natural world doesn’t stop where the sidewalk begins.

My favorite part of finding this mushroom wasn’t the mushroom fact at all. I wasn’t searching for anything special that day. I was simply walking Billie Sue—and there it was. It would have been incredibly easy to walk right past it. That’s one of the things I love about paying attention to the natural world. You don’t always have to venture deep into the wilderness to find something extraordinary. The extraordinary can be found by a fence or near a sidewalk. The magic is simply noticing it. 🍄✨

Nature is full of tiny wonders. Go out. Explore. Be amazed.