This year the Spring feels very normal, with things appearing at about the right times and no big surprises. We have been finding about the same number of orchids as last year, with slightly more on the western slopes than the southern ones. This follows the trend since the 2 very dry winters/springs that we suffered a few years ago where many southern plants were killed off by drought.
We have just 1 Lady orchid flowering this year and it has just started opening its flowers and 1 hybrid opened about the same time from its sheltered position outside the fence in the hedge.
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Lady orchid (Orchis purpurea)
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Lady x Monkey orchid hybrid (Orchis x angusticruris)
Currently the gate is closed but I will hopefully be going up on Sunday (EDIT: now delayed until Monday) to lay out the marker tapes and after that the gate will be opened to allow visitors onto the slope from the lower field.
In addition to the orchids there have been sightings of Grizzled & Dingy Skippers and I bet there are also Green Hairstreaks out too, along the hedges. If you can catch a moment when the sun is out you should be lucky. They are also plenty of beeflies, cowslips, hairy violets and a few Pasque flowers over in field 4. The Pasques have been in flower for a few weeks and are being eaten by the rabbits quite badly this year but they are worth going to look at.
Today’s work party really felt like the first proper day of Spring with 17C and glorious sun. Four species of butterfly were seen on the wing (Small Tortoishell, Brimstone, Peacock & Comma) and there were plenty of Bombus terrestris queens out looking for nesting sites.
The first task was to deal with the willow tree by the entrance gate. This is a lovely old tree with a colony of rare Jet ants (Lasius fuliginosus) in the rotted base but the winds had broken one of the limbs off right down to the base. The broken half is hung-up over the lane while the standing half was looking very precarious, as though it might fall across our gate & fence. Obviously, we want to keep the stump with the colony of ants and we will have to deal with the broken half at some point. But we also have to make sure that the standing half doesn’t break away – so we decided to cut off a few of the higher growth to reduce the leverage.
The Monkey orchids are looking great with plenty in flower on the western face of the slope. The southern side is cordoned off to protect the slope from more compaction and erosion – there are only 1 or 2 plants in flower because 2 successively dry Springs in 2011 & 2012 have knocked them back a bit.
The Lady orchids and a few hybrids are starting to go over but many hybrids are still in good flower. As are a few of the White Helleborines in the wood at the top – and the few that have, for the first time, come up on the orchid slope at the top of the hill.
 This weekend at last things seem to be moving! Lady orchids & hybrids are flowering well and the first Monkey orchids are starting to open but they have quite a long way to go. Next weekend should see all of the Monkeys opening but for now there are enough to keep most visitors happy. Pasque Flowers are still flowering in the middle of slope 4, beyond the beech tree.
Dingy Skippers, Small Heaths & Green Hairstreaks are common with Grizzled Skipper, Common Blue, Holly Blue, Brimstone, Orange-Tip, Large White, Peacock, Small Tortoishell, Large White & Small White also seen.
Popped up to the reserve on Saturday morning but the cloud soon rolled in and the chilly wind kept my coat buttoned up. The hybrids and the Lady orchids are flowering, but not as many (~30%) as I had thought there would be after seeing them last weekend. The cowslips and chalk milkwort is looking lovely and there are a few good butterflies – Green Hairstreak around the hedges, Dingy skippers on the lower slopes & Small Heath in the grassland.
Some photos from yesterday:
Popped up today to check the progress of the orchids … and the answer to that question is – “very, very late”. I am estimating they have another 2 weeks before many will be in flower – monkey orchids might even be later than that. It all depends on the weather of course and things will accelerate if we have warmth and some rain.
On the plus side, there was my first Grizzled Skipper of the year and quite a few Orange-Tip butterflies. There were also the first Gymnocheta viridis of the year, sunning themselves on the fence posts by the entrance gate and lots of Osmia bicolor bees, investigating old snail shells. Talking of bees, I also saw Bombus terrestris, lapidarius and pascuorum queens.
Cowslips are looking magnificent and the views are spectacular, as usual.
A few days ago I popped up to walk around the site and was pleasantly surprised to see that all of the Pasques were flowering brilliantly. Each clump seems to have multiple flower heads and they have even shown signs of spreading a little further away from their original grid formation.
Hairy violets and cowslips are also flowering well but the orchids are showing very few signs of stirring. The leaves are up but are at least 2-3 weeks late when compared to previous years. If we get warm showery weather in the coming weeks they will accellerate but if not then they are likely to only be flowering from about the third weekend in May.
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