Today we walked the track that leads westwards from Golspie towards Loch Lunndaidh searching for an un-named orchid which we'd been told was to be found where the track passes through the outer fence from the forestry onto open moorland, but we didn't have to go far before....
....despite the presence of a large rabbit population which might well have considered them a delicacy, we came across....
....a small group of northern marsh orchids in full and magnificent bloom on the grass verge.
A little further up we found a large but very localised collection of heath spotted orchids, ranging from white through to pale pink, again looking very healthy.
When we reached the forestry margin, where there is a magnificent view southwards down the coast towards Loch Fleet and beyond, we started searching and almost immediately came across....
....these two orchids. Mrs MW kindly knelt down to smell them - I have a poor sense of smell - and confirmed what I thought: they are marsh fragrant orchids, Gymnadenia densiflora, an orchid we haven't seen since our days on Ardnamurchan, where they were not uncommon. Happily, there were a good number of them, all rather spread out and, sadly, all slightly past their best.
So we have now found five species of wild orchid immediately around Golspie. The next species I would like to find would be one or both of the butterfly orchids, which should be in flower now.
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