The last time I was in England – in addition to being much too long ago – was too late in the year for much in the way of orchids to be seen. While I was in the correct place to have seen quite a variety (Oxfordshire), what remained by the August of my arrival there was only a patchy assortment of very dark brown stalks of plants already gone to seed.
The first time I saw a flower fly, I natural thought it was a bee.
The second time I saw one, I also thought it was a bee.
Third time – “OK, that has to be a bee.”
Fourth time – “Definitely a bee.”
After about twenty or so, I finally got one right on the first try.
It was during a walk near Radley Lakes with my friends Jo and Chris that I first suddenly took notice of the isolated curious brown stalks with the odd curling bits all around their tops. We had been stooping our way through what was once a water meadow but of more recent use as a […]
Although it’s much closer to Ostara than Samhain, Mark Avery has clearly been spending a fair amount of time recently reading about ghosts. Not ghosts of the supernatural sort, mind you; rather the Ghost Orchid, Epipogium aphyllum Sw., as featured in the title of Peter Marren’s new book “Chasing the Ghost; My Search for all the Wild Flowers of Britain” from Square Peg / Penguin UK.