Time to explore the local forest again. I remember there should be a spot with a lot of ferns not very far from home, previously when I’ve walked past I was looking for other plants but I was almost sure I would find some ferns there. I hadn’t gone more than 20-30 m from the house when I came across a lesser butterfly orchid! I’ve walked this way countless of times but never saw a butterfly orchid. Now that I know it’s there, I can even see it from my living room window! It was in a good position at that, so of course I had to take some pictures. Then I checked out my regular lesser butterfly orchid spot and again had to stop and take more pictures. Not far from that, I came across a freakishly big heath spotted orchid. Maybe it’s not big in height, but the flower cluster was as tight as I’ve ever seen.
Still on my way to the fern spot, I finally decided to take some pictures of the bird’s foot trefoil. Every year I think about taking pictures of this wonderfully yellow flower, but every year I don’t – I mean, it’s growing everywhere, I’ll take the next opportunity, right?
Finally I reached the humid fern spot and found all the mosquitoes as well. Been wondering where they were when I was able to do all the shooting so far without the pesky devils. Anyway, my bug spray was working so I just tried to ignore them and concentrate on the ferns. It turns out that the compact camera is my best ID aid. I can take quick shots from above and below and then overall for later study, so I don’t have to rip off any plants and carry home. The macro lens is less convenient for that, and using a 150mm lens for an overall shot of a meter high plant would be too much of a challenge anyway!
I have to say, the ferns are fascinating. There’s a whole lot of geometry in them with regular and repeating patterns. Maybe it gets a bit boring after a while to take similar compositions with minute differences between species, but they are an absolute treasure for studying the plants afterwards. There’s so much to them that I didn’t see on the spot, but that’s one of those things you learn to look at when you keep at it for a while. An exciting new world!
On the way home, I passed by the skiing track. I had heard that the storm a few weeks ago had felled a lot of trees here and indeed it was a sad sight. Some trees had fallen on the power line, so I’m wondering if they have enough money to fix it. Not that it’s really a problem for me, I didn’t need the illumination last winter at all. Instead, I was a bit irritated when someone had turned the lights on, because they stopped me from shooting the aurora!