Thursday 15 June 2017

Glories past and present


We are blessed in this part of the world with a wonderful quantity of wildflowers, many flourishing on the large field margins left by farmers (in return for EU booty) but others growing in apparently unpromising places. One of the latter is a fabulous Lizard Orchid, which is so in need of protection from casual parkers that the local council has provided it with a little mesh cage - pictured below.


My composite top picture shows the five species which I have encountered so far: clockwise from top right, Common Spotted, Green-winged, Pyramidal, Bee and Lizard. A learned colleague informs me that we also have the Common Twyblade. Six orchids on my doorstep. Bliss.


Nature's glories are short-lived, however, as shown by this picture kindly emailed to me by a friend who lives a little further up the canal. What a change life has made to this once glamorous Eyed Hawk. Nonetheless, it is still pegging along.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Fantastic array of orchids. I am green with envy!

Martin Wainwright said...

Hi there - glad you are well. They are such fine flowers, aren't they. The Lizard especially, with that weird tagliatelli. Loads of moths at this time of the year; I can't keep pace. All warmest Martin