Martin's Sussex Birding Blog: May 2019

Wednesday, 29 May 2019

Heath Fritillary

It was half past nine and it had been a fantastic morning. Six orchids down including two life ticks and I was on a roll. The only problem was that I had not planned for that level of success and I was having to improvise on where to visit next. On top of that the clouds were starting to build and rain was threatened.

I decided to visit Blean Wood to look for the Heath Frittilary butterflies. A few years earlier this had been the site of one of my most memorable butterflying days. We had walked into a glade and finding one Heath Fritillary had rushed to get the cameras out before it disappeared. The sun then came out and a brown carpet of pristine Heath Fritillaries rose out of the grass surrounding us. Too many to count but certainly many hundreds.

Today the same glade was still delivering although, being at the start of the flight period, only half a dozen were showing. This has to be one of the easiest butterflies to photograph. They don't fly far or fast, they are not easily flushed, and they are very obliging in giving closed and open wing views. I had it in mind to visit a site near Eastbourne on the way home to photograph the Small Pearl-bordered Fritillary and that would be a challenge of another order.

Heath Fritillary

Female Brimstone on Common Cow Wheat

And a few other butterfly shots taken recently. Closed wing shot of a Duke of Burgundy, they usually bask with wings open; open wing shot of a Holly Blue, they usually bask with wings closed; and a Wall Brown, unusual in that I have seen so many of them this year.

Duke of Burgundy

Holly Blue

Wall

Still only a quarter past eleven, enough material gathered for three blogs, but the rain had now set in. I went home via Park Heath Corner hoping for a break in the clouds and a chance to photograph the Small Pearl-bordered Fritillary but it was not to be. Still, it's always worth leaving something for another day.

White Helleborine

Having found my Late Spider Orchid and it still being only eight in the morning I had the opportunity to explore a bit more of Kent. My secondary target for the day was the White Helleborine, which would also be a life tick for me, and being only a few miles from Bonsai Bank I headed over there to begin my search. At least on this visit I would know the shortest route from the car park to the bank.

The Lady Orchids - Orchis purpurea were still putting on a good show although many were starting to go over and we have probably passed the peak flowering period.

No shortage of Lady Orchids

Lady Orchid

White dresses and straw bonnets were a great find but unfortunately I was just a few days too late and they were past their best.

Lady Orchid probably Var. albida - lacking anthocyanin pigments

Plenty of Common Twayblades - Neottia ovata around and a few Greater Butterfly Orchids - Platanthera chlorantha.

Common Twayblade

Greater Butterfly Orchid

Greater Butterfly Orchid Floret

After much searching I finally found the White Helleborines - Cephalanthera damasonium that I had been looking for. Perhaps a bit smaller than I had expected and tending to grow in areas of longer grass, they could be easily missed. However, having seen my first and knowing what to look for I was soon up to about a dozen plants.

White Helleborine

And there was still more to see on the bank. Common Spotted Orchids - Dactylothiza fuchsii were just coming into flower in a few of the more open locations.

Common Spotted Orchid

Bonsai Bank had delivered once again. I checked the time of my last photograph 09.22. I had driven a hundred miles from home, visited two sites, found and photographed six different orchids, including two life ticks and it wasn't even half past nine. A fantastic morning but what to do next. Lizard Orchids over at Sandwich Bay were a possibility but I was probably a couple of weeks too early. Heath Fritillary butterflies at Blean Wood seemed a better option and with the sky starting to darken I would have to get there quickly. See the next blog.

Late Spider Orchid

It was time for a return visit to Kent for the Late Spider Orchid Ophrys fuciflora. We had found them nearly two weeks ago but none were in flower. Orchids are a bit like birding, everyone sets there own rules for what counts as a sighting but for me it had to be the plant in flower.

It is a two hundred mile round trip to the location and it is difficult to justify that sort of journey for a picture of one small orchid that I had seen in bud only two weeks earlier. To ease my conscience, I justified it to myself by having a secondary target of White Helleborine, which would also be a life tick, conveniently forgetting that I could see this just a few miles from home.

I left home just after five arriving on site in the Wye valley at about seven o'clock, my concern being that later in the day the place could be full of orchid twitchers. As it was I saw no one and although there were signs of trampled grass around the entrance the place seems to be little visited.

I found my Orchid but then had a mild panic as it had a big black slug crawling over the rosette. It would have made a great picture but I had visions of the orchid being decapitated whilst I was getting my camera out. Having escorted the slug into an adjacent field I duly recorded my first Late Spider Orchid. Checking when I got home the slug seems to have been a rather large example of Arion ata agg. which has a preference for rotting vegetation rather than growing plants but it wasn't worth taking the risk.

Checking around there were at least another ten plants in flower.

Late Spider Orchid

Initially thought this was a Bee Orchid but it has a protruding nib on the lip

Most of these plants are protected by wire cages but the picture below gives a better feel for the size of the plant and the difficulty of finding them without some knowledge of where to look.

Even with a colourful flower they are not easy to spot

There seems to be a large variation in the shape and pattern of markings on the lip of this orchid. The sixth one below perhaps not fully developed yet.

I had expected to spend the whole day searching for a specimen in flower. There I was at 8am eating my packed lunch and wondering what to do next. See the next blog for four more orchids and a Heath Fritillary butterfly and all before midday. I was on a roll - until it started to rain.

Friday, 17 May 2019

Marsh Orchids

Marsh Orchids are starting to show on the south coast. These Early Marsh and Southern Marsh were taken at Ferring Rife just a few miles from home.

Early Marsh Orchid - Dactylorhiza incarnata

Southern Marsh Orchid - Dactylorhiza praetermissa

It is perhaps worth saying, that some experts believe that most of what appear to be Southern Marsh Orchids on this site, are actually hybrids of the Common Spot and Early Marsh Orchid, both of which are present in smaller numbers along with the Southern Marsh Orchids. In practice variants and hybridisation between D.fuchsii, D.praetermissa and D.incarnata make an accurate morphological assessment impossible, for someone with my level of skills.

It is early days but first impressions are that the number of orchids are down on previous years. There are plenty of rosettes around but the site is very dry and there seems to be a shortage of flower spikes. We may be in for a poor season. Lets hope I am proved wrong.

Thursday, 16 May 2019

Of Monkeys and Men

Another trip down into Kent in search of Orchids and it proved to be stunningly successful, although stopping just short of perfection. We had a plan, Man Orchids, Monkey Orchids, Late Spider Orchid and a few Flys. We left home at seven o'clock for what turned out to be a two and a half hour drive to our first site and we had all four in the bag by one o'clock - nearly! The nearly, being the Late Spider which we found but which was just three or four days short of flowering.

The first target was Man Orchid with our chosen site Darland Bank near Gillingham. It was our first visit to what proved to be a fantastic location but getting there, through the morning traffic, proved to be somewhat less than enjoyable. The journey taking us over an hour longer than planned.

We walked out on to the bank hoping to find a few specimens to photograph. Within a minute Dave had spotted the first flower. The numbers then rose quickly into the tens of, then hundreds of, and within half an hour to thousands of flowers. An unbelievable display but then, as we left, we were told by a local that we hadn't gone far enough to see the Man Orchid hotspot.

Man Orchid

Man Orchid Floret

As we left you couldn't help having a few concerns about the future of the site. It may be too steep for development purposes but it is surrounded by housing estates with more homes going up just below the bank. It's difficult to imagine this number of plants being wiped out but increasing use of the open ground for leisure purposes must be a worry.

We expected our second target, the Late Spider Orchid, to be the most challenging of the day. We had a general area in mind but it covered a few square miles. Detective work before we left home proved to be the key. A picture of a field found on a web search, a couple of hours of exploring miles of country lanes on Google Earth, in an attempt to match the configuration of bushes and trees and we had our location, or so we hoped.

It was perhaps the high point of the day when we walked into the field and found a few cages positioned to protect the orchids. It was quickly followed by a low point when we realised that none of them were in flower.

Late Spider Orchid - I assume.

Tiny specimen emerging - not caged yet.

I am assuming they are Late Spider Orchids but there is not enough detail here for me to be able to identify them. It looks like a return visit will be needed next week.

Final destination for the day was Park Gate Down. We had been here a week earlier and could see no sign of the Monkey Orchids. Today there were probably fifty or sixty showing in the first two fields.

The orchid is unusual in that the individual flowers open from the top, instead of the bottom as in most orchids. Whilst these flowers could only have been here for a week at most, there was already evidence of the tops of some of them starting to turn brown.