Tuesday 22nd May 2018

Another day in paradise. Or Kent as we call it.

I am flagging if you must know, going out at the crack of eight in the morning, climbing downs, woods, chalky banks crawling around in the undergrowth, looking for orchids. All fun stuff, and keeping me away from doing constructive.

Tuesday morning I was meeting another orchidist, this time from nearer home, Maidstone, as he wanted to see some of the stuff I have been posting. We planned to meet at half ten, so before then there is the usual waking up, breakfast, coffee, more coffee, and somehow without trying, it was ten and time to go out.

We meat outside Barham church, Chris was already waiting, so after introductions he followed me to the wood with the Birds Nest in, and they looked as fabulous as ever, even if numbers were well down on previous years.

I found three mores spikes, making six in total, but in what would come a pattern, one had been trampled.

Moving on to see the Lesser Butterfly, and one that was growing at the edge of the bridleway had been mown down either by a bike or horse, and so did not flower, and was now laying in the mud. A second had been munched by a rabbit, as all rabbits in the wood seem to have developed a taste for orchid.

So the only other spike left was in flower, more than half out, and looked sensational, swaying in the wind.

Chris too lots of pictures, as this was the first time he had seen Kentish Lesser Butterfly, and many years since seeing Birds Nest.

In the other wood, with the sun peeking through the tree canopy, the woodland floor looked calm and peaceful, and as you looked you could see the spikes of the Lady, showing dull pink and mauve in the subdued light. I went ahead to search for the var. alba ones, finding them just up the slope.

It seems every spike, every plant, is different, and you want to photograph every one, but with here and the other sites there are thousands, tens of thousands of spikes, and that is just impossible. So we walk among them, sniffing out interestings shapes, patterns or colours, circling the whole down before seeing the 3rd pure white one, a couple of elusive Fly and the colony of Herb Paris.

We were done, so I bid Chris farewell as he went to look for Late Spiders, and I drove back to Dover, stopping off to check on the Man orchids at Lydden.

They are at peak right now, and the colony is thriving and expanding; good news after the dreadfully low numbers last year.

And that was it, back home for two in the afternoon, going via Tesco to pick up some rolls and a box of wine.

I review pictures, write and listen to the radio, and somehow another afternoon slips by.

I had made pasta salad earlier, which means that it was breaded aubergine for dinner, bad traffic meant Jools took an hour to get home, and once I had fried the aubergine, we had eaten and washed up, it was half seven, and the day almost over.

Watering to be done, check on the plants, and news that one of the wisteria bought last year has at least on flower forming.