Cold and rainy day, but not too rainy for checking out some flowers. At first I drove towards Älgsjön to check a bog which I had heard would have orchid potential. Well, either it’s a bad year or there’s not much potential, because I only found a few early marsh orchids. But at one point when I was in the forest, I heard something growl very close by. I could swear it was a growl… or someone revving up a motorbike in the distance. Either way, I stopped and pulled out the compact camera. I figured, if it’s a bear and it will attack me, I’m done with for sure but I’ll have the coolest pictures ever. If it’s a bear and it will not attack me, I’d still have a chance for some cool pictures. And if it’s not a bear, I’ll take the shortcut over to the open bog anyway…

Having come back to the car empty handed, I viewed at the landscape and made a mental note to come back in the autumn, it looked nice. I then drove to one of the rare early marsh orchid ssp. cruenta spots and had a hard time finding any at all. Last year they were abundant but now I found only three in bloom and 5 non-flowering plants, all in a very small area. So I guess this fits with the lack of early marsh orchids earlier. Last year was the best orchid year I’ve ever seen, so a slower year now makes sense.

I was determined to get some pictures in any case, so I came home and checked out the flowers behind my garage. I found a huge patch of twinflowers, I mean they really were growing like a pale pink carpet! So I tried to get a picture which gives an impression of the abundance but there’s a risk that my favourite is the version where I isolated one twinflower… but I’m posting the abundance version anyway.

And if that wasn’t close enough to home, I then noticed a beautiful oxeye daisy with rain drops right under my kitchen window. So I could’ve saved myself the trouble and stayed at home all day!