The local orchids do grow in the most unlikely of places. This is a rather damp clearing just beside one of the tracks running down through Golspie Glen and it is, to date, the only place we've found....
....the common spotted orchid, which is, therefore, locally rather uncommon. It's usually a denizen of open moorland not damp, shadowed glens. In a similar way, in the unlikely setting of....
....pine needles and fallen fir tree branches in Ferry Woods we have the one local occurrence of....
...creeping ladies' tresses, so-called because they spread by sending out shoots below the ground. It's early for them - last year we found them in late July - but some....
....are already close to coming in to flower.
Out on the links at Littleferry the northern marsh orchids are in full and spectacular bloom though....
....many, especially those in more exposed positions, show signs of having been burnt by the recent cold winds, and a few have been killed.
Today we went looking for orchids in a new place, the croft at Farlary. There we found plenty of heath spotted orchids, particularly in open ground in damp soils along the edges of any drainage. That this species is called 'heath' suggests that this is the sort of environment in which one would expect to find them, often in the company of the common spotted. We also found....
....just two of these. They're probably northern marsh orchids but they're a slightly different shade to those we find amongst the links.
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