Orchid year part 5 - Wiltshire
After yesterday failing on our hunt for Small white orchids today I stayed a little closer to home and ventured just across the Gloucestershire border into Wiltshire for a few hours looking for a nice rare crossbreed orchid. The orchid in question today is a cross between a Frog Orchid and the Common Spotted Orchid. I had seen some pics of these online and they looked very cool. I arrived on site and had the whole reserve to myself. As I walked across the reserve I was greeted by calling Yellowhammers and Corn Buntings which are always great to hear. The first orchids I saw were Common Spotted orchids and these were very numerous, next I came across a small splattering of Chalk Fragrant orchids. Not the numbers or colour range I had seen already this week but still nice to see.
Common-spotted Orchid, Morgans Hill, June 2024
Chalk Fragrant Orchid, Morgans Hill, June 2024
Next up a small white coloured orchid caught my eye and it was a butterfly orchid. I had already seen large numbers of Greater this year so I hoped it would be Lesser, which I am aware have been seen here. I am still a novice with orchids so I took a few close up pictures of the plant and compared it with pictures in my guidebook. I have mentioned this book a few times but it is a great resource to have. To me they looked like Lesser and the fact that they looked a lot fresher than the Greater I had seen at the start of the week was good indication as Lesser flower slightly later. The pictures I took helped to convince me as they showed two great identifying features the lip was pointing straight down and in greater they usually curve backwards. They final piece for me was that the pollinia were close together and parallel but with greater they are spaced and angled.
Lesser Butterfly-orchids, Wiltshire, June 2024
After spending some time with the Lesser Butterfly-orchid I carried on across the reserve and more and more Lesser Butterfly-orchids came into view Probably well over 100 were seen. Next up was the Frog x Common Spotted I had a rough idea where it was but as I approached the area, it stood out like a sore thumb. Very pink looking and the grass around it had been flattened probably by others viewing it (always a giveaway) sadly whoever it was hadn’t seen a frog orchid nearby and flattened that as well. There were 2 of them here and on closer inspection I found a further 3 more. The more I looked the more frogs I came across as well. It was well worth the journey.
Common Spotted-Orchid (Dactylorhiza fuchsii) x Frog Orchid (Coeloglossum viride), Wiltshire, June 2024
On my route back to the car I found a few more pockets of frogs but no more crosses. As the sun was warming up the butterflies were on the wing and it was nice to catch up with a few Marsh Fritillaries.
Frog Orchid, Morgans Hill, June 2024
Marsh Fritillary, Morgans Hill, June 2024
