Saturday 17th June 2023

So, after the best part of five weeks doing little else than take photographs, I decided to spend Saturday painting the shed.

No I didn't, I went out orchiding.

Or did once we went to Tesco for the remainder of the shopping.

Another glorious warm day, that would be very good for photography,I thought.

Home for coffee and fruit for breakfast, before I packed my camera and headed to the Medway towns to meet up with two other people from my orchid group to hunt down some super rare orchids.

But then, they always are.

I drove up the A2/M2 to Chaham, turned off, and in a quiet residential area, I found Ian parked, so I pulled up behind him. Graham soon arrived too, and so we got out and set out down a narrow alleyway between the houses, into woodland behind.

Orchids are variable. Even the most common ones can produce spikes that are as rare as the rarest orchid species. And as all species can produce spikes with little or no pigmantation, they can also produce spikes with hyper-pigmantation.

Dactylorhiza fuchsii var. rhodochila, or a hyper-coloured Common Spotted Orchid. And in a colony where most spikes had strongly marked lips, there were four that really stood out, as the rings and dots had been covered by pigmantation, and the lips were a solid block of colour. I mean, I had seen shots of these, but to see them in person was something else.

We all took lots of shots, and then Graham said, I know of a colony of Lesser Butterfly orchids, would you like to see them?

We would.

The Lesser Butterfly at Barham have died out, and the ones at Stockbury seem to have had their flowers deliberately picked off this year, so another colony would be great to know about.

We drove in convoy for half an hour, met up in a pub car park, then drove in Graham's car to the end of a quiet, little used lane. A six-foot-sixer, Tony! And we set out on foot, a mile up the lane to a gate, where climbed over.

A car went by.

"What are you doing?"

We explained about the LBO and how rare they were and we knew they were in the wood. The gamekeeper knew about them too, and was happy to let us go, and if someone stopped us again, we could mention his name to say we had his blessing. We also said we would tell no one about the site.

We climbed over a fence into the wood, and shortly afterwards we saw the first of about twenty spikes, one measuring in at 68cm tall, and one that had a clear green colour to it.

We took shots of them all, though the humidity was getting to me, fogging the viewfinder and by glasses. Sometimes at the same time.

We walked back to the car, then droove back to the pub, so that we could go our separate ways. My plan was to head back to Dover, to call in at the council offices to see if the unusually marked Bee Orchid was showing.

It was, and had only just opened as the pollina had only just dropped and had not been visited by an insect yet.

I got shots, one of which came out rather well, even if i say so myself.

Then back home for a drink, then a bacon butty and a brew.

Phew, it was a scorcher.

I reviewed shots through the afternoon before we had Caprese again with the leftover bread from the day before.

Life was good.

We listened to Craig in the evening before heading up to bed at half eight.

Phew.