Then is started to rain and I hurried back to the car as the sky turned black. As I huddled in the car listening to Classic FM the thunder crackled around the hills and the rain bucketed down. It went over in about 20 minutes and so I quickly got back out into the field again and netted some more fies, including a potential Lydina aenea.

After about 20 minutes the sky darkened again and I made a dash for the car - this time heading home as it was 17:30 already.

Butterflies were very good too, with lots of Chalkhill Blues, Common Blues, Meadow Browns & Small Heath and single Small Tortoishell, Painted Lady & Dark-green Fritillary.

Many thanks to Jan & Ricki for running their lights and thanks to everyone who attended for making this a really successful evening!

The complete list of 85 species follows:

For this reason I’ve decided to close the slope down and declare an end to the flowering season. The lower gate will be locked and the marker tapes will be removed to allow the orchids to seed and for the slope to recover from all the trampling. For those of you still desperate to get a photo of a Monkey orchid, the top gate will be left open but please stay on the paths (where the remaining orchids are visible) and resist walking over the slope because you won’t find much and you’ll probably just tred on seeding orchids.

Here are a few photos taken this morning on my walk round:

The most surprising thing was to find that all of the Lady orchids had gone over and even a few of the hybrids had gone to seed. Most hybrids are doing fine but I think the rest will start to go over in the next week - especially if there isn’t significant rain soon. Most of the Monkey orchids are flowering OK but a significant proportion of them have wilted and died - either due to being eaten by small animals or having aborted due to drought.

It seems quite clear to me that we just haven’t had enough rain during April & May and the small showers kept the orchids alive for a while but in the absence of some serious downpours the plants are starting to fail as the tubers decide to abort flowering to save the plant itself.

The drought has also contributed to the large worn patch of ground around the hybrids (see below).

Monkey, Lady & the hybrids are all flowering very well at the moment and will probably continue to flower for another 2-3 weeks more.

I personally saw Grizzled & Dingy Skippers, Green Hairstreaks (everywhere), Small Heath, Orange Tip, Brimstone, Large White, Peacock & Common Blue.  Club-tailed dragonfly, Banded & Beautiful Demoiselles were also on the wing.

Lots of butterflies and other insects on the wing too - Orange Tip, Green-veined White, Brimstone, Peacock, Comma, Small Tortoishell, Dingy Skipper, Grizzled Skipper, Small Heath, Green Hairstreak, Common Blue, Small Copper, Pyrausta nigrita, Pyrausta purpuralis, Common Swift moth, Burnet Companion moth, Osmia bicolor (a solitary bee), Gomphus vulgatissimus (Club-tailed Dragonfly), Tachina ursina (a parasite fly), Dioctria rufipes (Common Red-legged robber fly).

Pretty good for birds too with Hobby, Red Kite & Buzzard all seen and Chiffchaffs in every hedge.

Lady orchids are in flower and the hybrids are just starting to flower, with quite a few still in tight bud. All Monkey orchids are in very tight bud with only a few showing buds at all, so they are a week or two away from flowering.

Here are a few photos to show what is about:

The big news has been the massive increase in the number of hybrid Lady x Monkey plants - partly a real increase and partly due to some under-recording last year. This year we have mapped 299, 66 of which are in bud, but all in roughly the same area as they have always been. Only a few have been found in the woodland edge outside the orchid enclosure and a few possibly Lady orchid seedlings have come up in the path.

This increase in hybrids has not been at the expense of the monkey orchids though, as we have already recorded 418 of those. Last year’s record was 427 and we usually find another 10-20 new plants through May as they pop up and flower.