With officiating duties taking me to Brecon on Saturday, I thought I'd have a look for the Little white Orchids at one of their most reliable sites in the south western part of the UK, Vicarage Meadows LNR near Builth Wells. The site also a good site for Heath Fragrant Orchid.
The site took a bit of finding and walking through the meadows orchids were very much missing from view. I knew I was towards the end of the flowering season for both, but expected/hoped that a couple were still flowering. Eventually I uncovered a rather stunted, and almost finished flowering Heath Spotted Orchid, which renewed my searching. A short while later and a result with a Heath Fragrant with its last few flowers open.
Not entirely satisfactory for a tick, but It gave hope others might still be flowering and looking a bit better. Unfortunately, that was about as good as it got. A number of seeding spike were found, most looking like Spotted or Fragrant Orchids but two were much more slender and the arrangement of the stalk leaves and seed heads lead me to believe these were Small White Orchids. Not enough, however, for me to tick the species - I'll have to return to this nice little reserve next year, a little earlier.
A couple of Golden-ringed Dragonflies and Small Skippers were year tick. A Frit was briefly seen, but I didn't get enough on it to get to species level, though I presume it was a Dark-green as it looked reasonably large.
The bird life was rather quiet. A couple of Crossbill's over, Buzzard and Red Kite chicks vocally begging to be fed. Two recently fledged Pied Flycatchers, were almost certainly locally bred.
The site took a bit of finding and walking through the meadows orchids were very much missing from view. I knew I was towards the end of the flowering season for both, but expected/hoped that a couple were still flowering. Eventually I uncovered a rather stunted, and almost finished flowering Heath Spotted Orchid, which renewed my searching. A short while later and a result with a Heath Fragrant with its last few flowers open.
A couple of Golden-ringed Dragonflies and Small Skippers were year tick. A Frit was briefly seen, but I didn't get enough on it to get to species level, though I presume it was a Dark-green as it looked reasonably large.
The bird life was rather quiet. A couple of Crossbill's over, Buzzard and Red Kite chicks vocally begging to be fed. Two recently fledged Pied Flycatchers, were almost certainly locally bred.
Nice work martin for finding them and it.s always nice to go somewhere .
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