Sunday 23rd April 2017

St George's Day

A day in which England celebrates the martyrdom of a middle-eastern Roman soldier, who was not English and had never been to England. And doing so, the far right, and not so far right celebrate by displaying the flag of St George, using it a symbol in restricting middle-eastern and other brown people. And not so brown European citizens.

But I digress.

I love my country, and want what will make it stronger. This does not involve waving or displaying flags. Just saying.

Anyway, Sunday, and as for the weather, read yesterday's blog, because today the weather was just the same; cloudy and cold in the morning. But with the promise of sunny intervals again in the afternoon. So, fingers crossed.

Anyway, with me off on my travels again tomorrow, my thoughts turned to orchids, of course, so, my first thought was to go down to Kingsdown to check on the Early Spiders. It was dull and cool again, but with these orchids, the colours will show through even on a dull day, or so I hoped. Jools is a tad orchided out, so did not come, the plan was just to nip down, look for orchids, take shots and come back. And going early morning, traffic would not be a problem driving through Kingsdown.

And I was right, it was brightening from the north, si my hopes were raised on some good shots. I park on the main road, walk down the track, cutting through on the SSSI area, taking the right path. And I almost stand on a flowering spike. Orchids here are so much smaller than at Samphire, and are darker in colour, so well worth recording this colony.

In fact, as I walked down the path, I found six more spikes flowering, and four more at least that will flower in the next week.

I take many shots, shots of all flowering spikes, then go back to the car and then to home, as the morning demanded bacon. I get busy in the kitchen, grilling, buttering, boiling the kettle the dishing up. All done by quarter past nine. A friend of mine said he was visiting many of the Kent orchid sites Sunday, and his Facebook update suggested he left his house at six, so I felt enthused, and said to Jools, you go clean your teeth and I'll wash up. Which is Jelltex for I've changed the plan, we're leaving in 5 minutes.

The plan was to go back to Yockletts again, as there should be at least one Fly open. Fly Orchid that is, although it was getting brighter on the coast, once driving up Stone Street it soon got overcast again, so I did not have high hopes. However, once parked up, it seemed to be brighter, with breaks in the cloud to the north. I mean, who knows, maybe even sunshine?

As I walk through the gate to the reserve, I see something, looked like a leaf, but I knew it wasn't. It was a roosting male Orange Tip, clinging to a stem of Cow Parsely, and being cold meant I could snap him really close. The Orange Tip is beautiful in the upper wings, especially the male with those bright orange fore wing tips, but underneath, they are incredible, and I had been wanting to get such a snap for several years. And now I could.

We walk up the bank, on either side of the path, the undergrowth is getting denser week by week, hiding many of the Twayblade rosettes and anything else of orchidy interest. We climb up through the bluebell glade, which is peppered with Early Purples too, plast the miles and mile of Dog's Mercury too until we come to the meadow, and I was hoping to see Green Hairstreaks. But the lack of sunshine meant they were roosting, if they were about, and without sun, we thought we would leave the basking adders and slow worms beneath the iron plates laid out on the edge of the meadow.

Behind the seat the large Fly had been uprooted, not by a person I think, as I found its withered remains nearby, but as it grew in the middle of a track, any animal could have stood on it. Indeed later, we disturbed a herd of deer just down from here whilst walking back, so a lot more wildlife about than we imagine, and some large.

Anyway, down the slope towards the middle of the reserve, we find may Fly spikes, including, at last, one in flower, and a couple nearly there. Up the path to the top meadow, the Greater Butterfly are pushing their spikes upwards, now erect and not floppy like last week.

On the top meadow I meet another orchid hunter, and we exchange news of what we'd seen. He just found his first Fly, a little way along I show him one that was fully opened, hidden my vegetation, but my eye caught it.

For the first time, we walk the who circular path, on through the woodland paths, then into the bluebell woods, scattered with Early Purples and the remains of the Wood Anemones. Down the hill, and just where I predicted, we found the mother lode of Fly Spikes, including two which were open.

We walk back along the lower path, finding many more Fly spikes, and Ladys about to open too, but none fully open. If there were time we would have gone back to Stockbury, but not this week.

Back to the car, and up the Gogway to Stone Street, back through Bridge and to Bishopbourne on our way to Barham. By now it was after midday, and there was little traffic about, at least down the narrow lanes of East Kent. We park at the bottom of the bridleway, and I go up to check on the various bi-coloured, pink and pure white Early Purples. But the EPOs have almost failed here, just bare spikes were showing in most cases. Not sure if they have been eaten, or just not produced sepals and lips. How odd. I do find the Lesser Butterfly rosettes, and they too are well developed, and starting to push upwards.

On the other side of the road, there are no spikes open, apart from Twayblades, so I do a quick survey, and we will return again. And again. And again.

We call in at the old folks on the way back, Tony was planting in the greenhouse, and the chickens all seemed to be playing the roll of the Cooler King, although got excited as I fed them grass and daisies. Again, we were offered no eggs.

Half one now, and we were beyond hunger, so we stop off at KFC for a snack, and pretty poor it was too. I have a "burrito", which was poor. The fries, as ever, were dreadful. But, saved me cooking, and as we had nothing, best we got something.

The day is slipping by us once again. Instead of cooking dinner, I warm up some pull pork sausage rolls; dies this mean that as they don't contain sausage meat they therefore should not be called sausage rolls? I do think about these things, and sometimes say them out loud. This is when Jools sighs a lot I think.

I write, listen to music, have a shower, pack and so am ready for the early start on Monday. There is the football to watch leftover from the morning when orchids were clearly more important.

Outside darkness falls and it grows cold again. We have put more peanuts out for the badger, and as I go to bed at half nine, he is already out there frantically munching away. Today Kent, tomorrow Denmark.