Martin's Sussex Birding Blog: Late Spider Orchid

Showing posts with label Late Spider Orchid. Show all posts

Friday, 14 June 2019

Lizard Orchid

Back to Kent again today with the target being the Lizard Orchid. Success on finding this one orchid and we would have returned home happy but in the end we had the Lizard plus nine other species - Lizard, Pyramidal, Common Spotted, Chalk Fragrant, Monkey, Musk, Common Twayblade, Greater Butterfly, Fly, and Late Spider.

Harrap reports the Lizard Orchid as being rare and very localised. As a statement for the country that may well be true but it does not apply to Sandwich Bay. We found them growing along the side of the road, on the golf course, at the back of the beach and in peoples front gardens. There were thousands of them.

Lizard Orchids - Himantoglossum hircinum

The Lizard Orchid is on the edge of its range in England and numbers have fluctuated over time, probably due to climate changes. By 1900 the Lizard was down to just four remaining sites and extinction in England was threatened. Even as late as the 1970s and 80s a twenty four hour guard was maintained at the largest site at Sandwich Bay to deter orchid collectors. Now it seems to be thriving and gradually expanding its territory.

Lizard Orchids - Himantoglossum hircinum

Lizard Orchid - Himantoglossum hircinum

Lizard Orchids - Himantoglossum hircinum

It is not the easiest of flowers to photograph as the greyish green flowers blend into the background of long grass in which it grows. Close up, however, there is some nice detail in the individual florets.

Florets Lizard Orchid

The bright colours of Pyramidal Orchids were a constant distraction whilst seeking out Lizards to photograph. In the end I couldn't resist taking a few pictures for the blog.

Pyramidal Orchid - Anacamptis pyramidalis

Next stop was Park Gate Down where we had seen a report of three spikes of Musk Orchids. It is a small insignificant orchid and finding it would be much harder than last years search, when we visited Noar Hill to see thousands of spikes carpeting the reserve.

Park Gate Down was a glorious sight. It had changed significantly from when we visited only a couple of weeks ago. Common Spotted and Chalk Fragrant orchids now covered the slopes in huge numbers.

Common Spotted Orchid - Dactylorhiza fuchsii

The plant below is a very pale version with limited and very faint pink markings but it probably falls within the normal range of colour variations for the Common Spotted Orchid.

Common Spotted Orchid - Dactylorhiza fuchsii

Chalk Fragrant - Gymnadenia conopsea

Although it is a fairly common find, it was nice to see a pure white specimen of the Chalk Fragrant.

Chalk Fragrant - Var. albiflora

Floret - Var. albiflora

Lots of Common Twayblades. Once you get to recognise the plant it seems to be everywhere.

Common Twayblade - Neottia ovata

Monkey orchids were still around but going over fast. I wanted to record it again but I had to photograph the side in shade and I have "healed" a few decaying arms and legs in photoshop!

The hard work was in finding the three spikes of Musk Orchid. We knew which field they were in but finding, what turned out to be two and a half, ten centimetre spikes, in a field of grass and wild flowers was never going to be easy. Newly emerged Twayblades in particular kept giving false indications of successes.

After about an hours of searching we stopped for lunch, starting to think that we would have to pay a return visit to Noar Hill to see them again. Fortunately Dave was on top of his game and by lining up anthills on a photograph he had seen and saying a few magic words he managed to find them. A great achievement, standing just six foot away and with Dave pointing at them I still struggled to pick them out.

Musk Orchid - Herminium monorchis

Other finds included a few Greater Butterfly Orchids, as below and a good number of Fly Orchids, which were well past their best and which I did not bother to photograph

Greater Butterfly Orchid

We had one final stop to make for the day. We had seen Late Spider Orchids earlier in the year, before they had flowered and I had been back to see them in bloom. Unfortunately Dave had been chasing butterflies in the Pyrenees at the time and had missed out on seeing them in flower. We thought he may have missed out on the chance for this year but the return visit found a couple still looking good and we were able to record them.

Late Spider Orchid - Ophrys fuciflora

Another great day Orchid hunting. It helps fill in those quiet periods in the bird spotting year and makes a change from butterflies and dragonflies.

Wednesday, 29 May 2019

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.

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.