heath spotted orchid

I've been after this one for a while now. It's not at all a common species in Lincolnshire.

Managed to find a colony of 9 on a local heath, so it's continued existence seems a bit shaky.

A nice subtle beauty about them. A little like common spotted orchids in flower colour, but the lower tooth is small, the lower flower lip very wide and the spike generally more slender and not conical. Leaves were spotted and very slender. Nice.










heath spotted orchid

Some other nice flowers around such as this slender St. John's wort. A beautiful red tinge to the lower petals and check ou the black dots around the petal edges.




slender St. John's wort


...and the weedin' is good

Large Heath

On a very hot day, went in search of large heath as its getting close to peak flight period for these chaps.

Was not disappointed, stumbling into a good 30+ without any effort. They were busy nectaring on flowers by the path, including bramble and clover.

Other butterflies appear to be severely down in numbers this year, so it's good to see the large heath out in force. As they are a species of boggy places, I wonder if it was simply this fact that enabled them to cope with the heavy rain and flooding of last year that has knocked back all the others?.






large heath


large skipper


large skipper take off

The odd common hawker, odd black darter plus a few large red damselfly were also on the wing.

black darter