As far as warm and sunny summer weather goes, then July wasn’t it. We got rain, then it rained a bit more, and when it stopped raining it started again. Ok it wasn’t entirely that bad, but it sure wasn’t good either. But don’t get me wrong – I’m not complaining! By some freak accident…
Very exciting day – looking for the ghost orchids (Epipogium aphyllum)! I really had been looking forward to seeing it, because these mysterious small pale orchids have become my favourites. Last year was spectacular for them so we didn’t dare to hope it would be equally good this year, but I think it turned out…
Some wise photographer once said that if your pictures are not good enough, then you’re not close enough. I wholeheartedly subscribe to that, so when it was time to photograph the creeping lady’s-tresses orchids (Goodyera repens), I focused as close as the macro lens allowed and now I finally have some pictures of this orchid…
I missed the white waterlilies last year and I didn’t want to repeat the mistake this year. So I took off after work, ignoring the rain, and drove to my favourite white waterlily tarn. I was disappointed to find that the lilies were over bloom or not open or just plain too far away from…
It was time for another excursion to find some local rarities. There’s a place near by with both narrow-leaved marsh orchid (Dactylorhiza traunsteineri) and hairy butterwort (Pinguicula villosa), so that’s where we headed. When we got closer to the location, we started seeing a lot of early marsh orchids. Soon the early marsh orchids started…
Up until the midsummer, June was very cold. We even had a frost night, which luckily didn’t seem to do too much damage to the plants, but it remains to be seen – some of the berries may have taken a beating. Then after midsummer when the weather turned, it got really warm and I…
After all the hyping I’ve done about the lesser butterfly orchid, I’m almost afraid to show the picture – risk for an anti-climax! But here’s the deal. I wanted to get a good close-up – a real macro, in fact – of the flower and the long spur. But showing the flower and its spur…
I’ll be off on a short holiday now, probably no Internet access. I will be able to send tweets from my mobile though, my latest tweet can be seen here in the blog lower down in the right margin. Now you’ll be wondering why on earth I have Twitter when hardly anyone is reading this…
Take 1 When I set out northbound, I saw some very dark clouds ahead of me. Otherwise it was sunny, so I figured it was just showers and drove on. I ignored the rain, but when the hail started pounding the windshield, I turned back. But I was right, it was just a shower. I…
It’s midsummer. What better way to use the day off than walk around a bog, in rain, looking for orchids and other plants? Well I couldn’t think of anything better anyway. And I mean that quite seriously! The result was 7 individuals of early marsh orchid ssp. cruenta and about a dozen of early marsh…