Friends of Groyne No.4: Southern Marsh Orchid

Monday, 23 March 2020

Self Isolation Part 2 - Birds, bugs and orchids.

Only one comment about the blog - "What happened to Day 2 ?" Well unfortunately my plan went awry, nothing to do with me I hasten to add. I have a westerly facing back garden and the only time it is unpleasant to be out there is when there is a stiff easterly breeze with a touch of north in it. Very little turned up throughout a very grey and cold day. Just a few hardy Blue Tits on the feeders and they didn't hang around.

Today the breeze was still present but it was tempered by some welcome sunshine and the birds and bugs came out to play. Blue Tits, Great Tits and Long-tailed Tits darted in and out. Twittering Goldfinches in a variable sized flock graced us with their presence. The long staying female Blackcap skulked around the feeders but declined to pose. Oddly enough one year we had seven Blackcaps regularly visiting the garden and none of them was shy.

Most of the Woodpigeons have gone but one resident had a shock as the pocket rocket Sparrowhawk paid another visit. Feathers flew but the pigeon escaped and the Sparrowhawk sat on the fence looking very annoyed. He really doesn't like the sound of my camera shutter - he just glares at the lens in disgust. Still, a few more nice pics. I haven't seen what I assume is his mate lately, she cruises around the district, flap - flap glide, flap - flap glide putting in the occasional stoop into someones garden. Of course her presence always puts the resident Herring Gulls into alarm.

Sparrowhawk snack

Sparrowhawk

Angry Sparrowhawk

The Jays didn't turn up until mid afternoon but we did have what for us is a rarity - a single Jackdaw calling from a television aerial perch. A bit of a waste of time as I am sure he the only one of his kind in the area. We have a Starling that sits on our antenna and time and again he has had me searching the skies. It mimics perfectly the call of a Buzzard - will have to try and record it.

Nice to record a Peacock butterfly, our second garden tick of the year.

The warm sunshine brought of the bugs, several type of fly, bees and hoverflies - none of which I can identify at this time. One fly by Comma that didn't stop and I was expecting to see a Bee Fly as our garden primroses are in full bloom. If you wait long enough one will turn up.

Dark-edged Bee Fly

This Bumble Bee was fast asleep.

?????

Bumble of some description - time will tell.

Meanwhile in the cold greenhouse the mild winter means that my Lady's Slipper Orchids are on the move. This one has six stems coming up, I am hoping that four will flower which means I can hand pollinate two for lots of green seed pods.

I also spent some time potting up Southern Marsh Orchids, protocorms from seed that I sowed between August and December last year. This is a delicate time as they are being weaned from oat medium in petri dishes along with their symbiotic fungus. The fungus needs to be able to generate carbon from the organic matter within the compost which the orchid immediately "borrows."

Might just flower in three years - probably four

Tuesday, 9 July 2019

Fen Orchids

If you want to see the Fen Orchid, Liparis loeselii then there are only a couple of options open to you, Travel either to South Wales or deepest Norfolk. We chose the former for our venture, mainly because getting to Wales is easier and we had some excellent information about the location of what is a pretty difficult orchid to find. Harrap describes it as " a rather small and drab orchid" and " unlikely to be stumbled upon by chance".

We left after lunch on the Monday and made good time down to Kenfig NNR. Located close to Bridgend, this reserve is predominantly sand dune environment and it is in the dune slacks where the orchids are found. We had a couple of hours left for a cursory search before checking into our overnight accommodation at Port Talbot so we parked up and set off for the heart of the dunes, With most of our orchid searches we start with huge optimism which tapers off to near despair as we fail to find anything and today was no different. However, we finally found a couple of specimens, one of which was well worthy of a photograph and optimism that our plans for the next day would be rewarded with more of this "dimunitive jewel" - I don't agree with Harrap!

For once we didn't allow any "mission creep" and remained focused on finding the Fen Orchid but I did happen to notice the massive populations of other orchids all showing a huge variation in size and colour.

Next morning there was no rush, a leisurely breakfast and off to Kenfig. Unfortunately the visitor centre was open but unmanned so we were unable to obtain any local info. Not deterred we headed off for the vicinity of the previous day's find, only this time we were happy to stop and record other orchids. After expending a considerable amount of time and drawing a blank we spied, in one of the slacks, a cane stuck in the ground. Now a nod is a good as a wink as they say and there we found several fresh specimens. Opening up a wider search we counted in excess of 60 spikes, in various states of maturity from shrivelled up specimens to spanking brand new. Although it was apparent that here were no "in bud" specimens that we could find. So, it looked as though our timing was a tad on the late side.

My first Fen Orchid, Liparis loeselii

Fen Orchid, Liparis loeselii

Going over.

The next three orchids were huge spikes, it's probable that such size is from hybrid vigour. The parentage I can only guess at - both Southern Marsh and Common Spotted are likely candidates.