Good year for butterflies?

This little beauty was found close to Thurleigh yesterday.

Greater Butterfly Orchids can be found in woodland and grassland so keep your eyes out in woodland rides and wood edges especially on the boulder - clay areas of the county.

The flowers have long nectar filled spurs that are visited by moths to effect pollination...the flowers are scented at night so those with a keen sense of smell may be able to locate them by sniff!

These orchids appear to be able to survive without flowering for extended periods so it is worth following up old records. John Dony recorded it as frequent in our boulder - clay woods and rarely in open pasture. It has declined..or at least records of this lovely plant have declined..so that Chris Boon descibes it as rare in Bedfordshire...this year may be a good year to rediscover it in some old haunts.  Ancient woodland, old grassland, even road verges around Thurleigh, Sharnbrook, and other areas of boulder-clay and limestone are all worth a look. It should occur in woods on the chalk but there are no recent records.

The even rarer Lesser  Butterfly Orchid should also be out now...if in doubt take a photo of the flower looking in the "face" of the flower..the pollinia ( pollen bearing structures) are two parrallel bars in the Lesser but they are widely separated at the base but converging at their tips in the Greater.

If you find one...or even a whole wood or field full it would be a red letter day.!

Good hunting always

Now it`s hotting up....

 

 

Image Steve Halton

June..or at least it should be..the first two weeks of June are usually the best time for finding our wild orchids. 
However this year does seem to be an exceptional one. June sees May blossom yet to reach its peak while the first Dewberry is in flower and Cow Parsley is still out. 

Steve Halton`s spectral Butterfly orchid drawn especially for our orchid survey should inspire us to get out now and look for this rare and declining plant.

Chris`s atlas records Greater Butterfly Orchid  to the north-west of the county as the remaining stronghold, with possibilities at Potton Wood and in the centre of the county . The even scarcer Lesser Butterfly Orchid was last seen in Potton Wood in around 1980, but may well be lurking awaiting discovery by some intrepid surveyor!  

Many of our commoner orchids are now coming into flower and I await a flood of Common Spotted and Twayblade records in the next week!.

 Bee Orchid, Pyramid and Fragrant will be out by the end of the week..if we get some sun at last . There is still time for someone to find Bird`s-nest Orchid..an elusive phantom of some of the darkest parts of our woods.
 
Records have continued to come in every day and a big thank you to everyone who has so far contributed..we hope you are enjoying the survey.

It does appear that this year is a bumper one for White Helleborine with probably over two thousand shoots visible in Tingley Field Plantation close to Pegsdon that are viewable from the permissive footpath to the Icknield Way.

Burnt Tip Orchid has had a good year so far with over sixty plants in flower. Some plants will have protection from rabbits this year in an attempt to get some seed produced..they have failed to do so in recent years.

Let`s see what the next two weeks bring..this should be the most exciting time to record your local orchids. Good luck everyone.

 

              

Early- purples definately plant of the month!

Well done everyone who has been searching the target woods for Early- purples.


This is a screen shot of the recent adnoto submitted records showing a good coverage.




Chris will be adding these records to the database to give an overall map of Early-purples in the county.
Contrast this species with Green-winged orchid described by John Dony in his flora of 1953 as "Frequent....on calcareous soils throughout the county...becoming scarcer..increased ploughing of grassland". Chris`s  2011 flora has recent ( 1987 - 2006) records from 7 tetrads.

We are down to 4 in 2012/13 as one of these recent records was made in 2012. We can only hope that with increases in field edge grassland in agri-environment schemes that Green-winged can make a comeback.
If you know of any likely grassland that is flower rich..perhaps in your local churchyard, common or orchard now would be a good time to have a look.
Good hunting as always.
Graham

Early Purples..an excellent year so far

After the last request to look for Early -Purple Orchids especially in woods with no recent records we have received records from 17 main locations; four of them in the target woodlands of Chicksands, Flitwick, Salem Thrift and Kempston Woods.
Thanks to everyone who have gone out to have a look.There is still plenty of time to go and see EPO`s.
Potton Wood takes the prize as best EPO wood so far with over one thousand plants recorded by Ian Woiwood ..so far!!

keith found a nicely coloured specimen showing that they do vary in colour.

Do send me a zero record if you have visited any woodlands but failed to find any. Its all good information!

The Beds Green-winged Orchids have done well this year also, but none have been reported from Fancott meadow- an old stronghold for the species.

It looks like flowering of other species will be late this year after the late cold weather and flowering of species normally seen in late May may not be seen until June.

Shoots of Common Spotted, Twayblade, Butterfly, White Helleborine and Fly Orchid have been spotted so there is plenty to look for.

The known colony of Bird`s-nest orchid has been reported to be beneath a pile of logs this year!. This Orchid has no chlorophyll and so relies on its fungus association for its food. It can be difficult to find!
Richards photo may help you spot them.

 Most recent sightings for Bird`s - nest  are King`s wood Heath and Reach (SP92J), Aspley Wood (SP93H),  Dungee Corner ((SP9359) and  Odell Great Wood (SP59); but any ancient wood or wood on or close to the chalk will be worth a look. They can be found in the darkest part of woods with little other ground vegetation and quite a lot of leaf litter.

Good luck

 

 

Early-purple Orchid  is now out.

 

Here is a list of locations compiled by Chris Boon that have had EPO`s in the past but not recorded recently. If you are close to these woods now is the time to enjoy the bluebells and have a good look round.

 

Sadly Cainhoe wood is no more...one of the last ancient woodlands to be felled and cleared in Beds.

Flitwick wood used to have an attractive white form of EPO, do go and look to see if it can be refound.

 

 

Wood	Tetrad	Last    Date
Blackgrove Wood	SP93R	1950
Salford Wood	SP94F	1995
Holdot Wood	SP94K	1979
Marston Thrift	SP94Q	1953
Kempston Wood	SP94Y	1985
Hanger Wood	SP94Z	1987
Dungee Wood	SP95J	1993
Park Wood	SP95J	1993
Hardwick Spinney	SP95Q	1953
Salem Thrift	SP95V	1986
Barwick Wood	SP96Q	1981
Great Hayes Wood	SP96Q	1986
Flitwick Wood	TL03H	1988
Claphampark Wood	TL05L	1994
Lady Wood, Melchbourne	TL06H	1989
Keysoepark Wood	TL06L	1997
Cainhoepark Wood	TL13D	1992*
Chicksands Wood	TL14A	1995
Waterloo Thorns	TL15V	1987
Cockaine Hatley Wood	TL25Q	1991

 

NB The tetrads given above are for location on Ordnance Survey maps. Several sites are in more than one tetrad and we need 6 0r 8 fig grid references for the orchid locations as we wish to plot the data at a resolution of 1km grid squares.

*Wood felled…old field edges still have large trees.

 

Chris has also updated the map for EPO showing the new adnoto records to date.

 

We look forward to a rush of records! Happy Hunting.

Graham

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Emerging Twayblades..watch out for the teeth!

The poor weather continues with the coldest March for fifty years.
However our orchids are starting to send up shoots and the spotted leaves of the early purples have been recorded from Potton wood.

Twayblades are also just appearing as stubby green shoots, usually to be found in woodland and scrubby areas but also grassland.  Those seen on the last day of March were about 2cm high.

 On first glance the shoots look similar to the emerging leaves of Lords and Ladies or arum lilly that grows in the same habitat.
Twayblades usually have just one pair of broad leaves, although some may have one or more than two. The emerging leaves are rolled together and have a distictive "fang" at the apex. The arum shoots have only one rolled leaf that looks like a shoot as it emerges and although with a pointed apex lacks the "fang".

So with care  have a go and record twayblade shoots, it is useful in situations where deer or rabbits nip the shoots off and so become hard to see once the other vegetation has grown up.
Good hunting!

Twayblade shoot at Sewell in March. Showing rolled pair of leaves and "fangs"



Twayblade shoot at Sewell in March from above showing rolled pair of leaves and "fangs"

Arum shoots at Sewell in March showing single rolled leaf with pointed apex but no "fangs"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bee Orchids 

Tetrad map of bee orchid up to March 2013. Bedfordshire

19 new Tetrad records have been made since the begining of the Bedfordshire Orchid Survey. Altogether 38 bee orchid locations have been sent in using the Adnoto recording system devised by Keith Balmer of our record centre. The records give location details of over 700 plants so far. Well done everyone who have sent in records, please keep them coming.

There is still plenty of time to spot bee orchids leaves so do visit your local road verge or even your lawn and have a good look.

Other winter green species have been located including green winged at Studham, man at Totternhoe and frog at Whipsnade.

EPO`s

Late March into April is a good time to begin to visit local woodlands to look for leaves of the early purple orchid. These are our earliest flowering orchid along with the green winged, and can be found in woodland and grassland, but most usually in old woodland, particularly those with bluebells.

Early purple orchid in Potton wood

The leaves are usually well spotted with purple blotches and spots, although unspotted plants may occur. The leaves are glossy green and the spots and blotches although often circular tend to be elongated along the leaf.

Early purple orchid leaves

They may be confused with other spotted leaf orchids particularly common spotted which tend to have non glossy leaves and when they are spotted tend to have elongated spots across the leaf; but this is not foolproof!

Common spotted orchid leaves

Early purples are one of the plants when found in woodland that indicates that woodland has long been present in that locality so many other plants of interest may be present.

Do let us know how you are getting on, we hope  for and look forward to a busy and enjoyable spring and early summer. Good luck!