Yesterday, 1st June, started the month off in fine fashion by giving us five first sightings in Sutherland of some fine insects. However, our walk at Littleferry went on to provide us with something which was even more special, the first orchid we've seen since leaving Ardnamurchan. We had been starting to despair of finding orchids as they should be out by now, but Sutherland seems to run several weeks late.
They were scattered across the links, so the first led to many more. They're early purple orchids, a common orchid of grasslands which can be out as early as April. At first we found one or two isolated specimens but, as we continued to search, came across....
....more and more. Some were stunted, perhaps because they made a habit of growing close to, or sometimes on the well-beaten paths across the links.
The more we searched, the more we found. It was noticeable that all were of very uniform colour. Our experience of early purples on Ardnamurchan is that they can vary in colour, through purples to pink.
This is the size of the largest we found, but given time they'll grow bigger, and we'll be returning to admire them again and to solve....
....a small mystery. In several places we have found these, the dried remains of last year's orchids. While some are close to where the early purples are growing, most are well away from them. I suspect that they are frog orchids. We'll see.
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