hypercolius's Journal

Currently my orchid hunting is going better than I expected.
In March during my trip to Spain I found the searingly beautiful mirror orchid (the prettiest I've ever seen) in massive swarms near the place I stayed, and in April topped that up with sawfly orchids and yellow bee-orchids.
On the 28th May, after a month of collecting information, I felt that I knew where to look for the Essex tongue orchids. When I did find the colony of the critically endangered for the UK orchid, I was astounded to see that I had pinpointed the correct location of the colony on a map before, within 20 meters. I was doubly amazed after I saw the state of the meadow. Let's just say the colony is impossibly well hidden. The orchids were beautiful, and it seemed to me that there was a density of over 100 orchids per square meter here!
Moving on to Ipswich, where I tried and failed to see man orchids last year, I checked my two sites. At one of them I found 5-7 orchids, mostly going over. But at the other, there were three immaculate orchids.
After some analysis, I was able to locate where to look for the extremely rare early marsh ochroleuca orchid, and just today went out and found them without a problem. The ochroleucas grow in only three places in the UK, like the tongue orchids. But the ochroleucas are very scarce at all sites, whereas the tongue orchids grow in massive colonies where they occur. This reminded me of last year's military orchids, with the site I visited having 95% of the UK population.
Currently the only other orchids I desire to see this year are fen orchid, marsh fragrant orchid and marsh helleborine. The marsh orchids will be relatively easy- they occur in swarms at the ochroleuca site I visited. But I have serious doubts about finding the fen orchid. I know where to go and look, but the orchid is just so small and blends in so well... I also intend to see glow-worms this year as well.
After this, the orchids I'm really interested in finding are ghost orchid, red helleborine, Lady's slipper and small-flowered tongue orchid, the rarest UK orchids. That will be for next year.
What concerns ghost orchid, that is a nearly impossible task. If it does grow somewhere, it will be so heavily protected nothing will be learned about the site. I know where it occurred in the past though, so may get lucky. Lady's slipper is easy- just visit the reserves where the plants can be viewed growing wild. The small-flowered tongue orchid is an enigma. After being refused access to the London roof where they set up a colony, my only other chance is the newly-established Suffolk colony. I know nothing about the location except its general area, and I really don't want to visit that place. but I may be able to find it after intensive searches. Red helleborine is also easy- I know all 3 sites where it occurs.