Cloudy, dull and wet.
This is one of those sequences that shows the extremely tight integration between hosts and their dependents.
Clitocybe nebularis is a common enough fungus in hedgerows and woodland fringes:
Specimen cap about 10 cm. across.
The cap and stipe are riddled with the holes made by fly larvae. These larvae must mature very quickly: the fungus is only around for a few days. So the adult fly must synchronise very closely with the appearance of the fungus.
And here we have a very small (4mm.) Ichneumonid which lays its eggs into the bodies of the live larvae. You can just make out her ovipositor towards the lower left. Since she has to lay into the body of the larva, she must also synchronise very closely with the egg-laying and hatching sequence of the host fly.
These series of tight dependencies fascinate me.
And, of course, the fungus is growing on something...
Here she is again, this time cleaning her antennae.