Badbury Rings in May again

[puddleshark]

May is here. Time to go orchid-hunting on the ramparts of Badbury Rings Iron Age hillfort again...



Hazy sunshine. No wind. Down in the ditches, among the buttercups and the butterflies, it was very warm: a summer's day. Common Blue butterflies and Dingy Skippers on the wing.


The ramparts are looking a little overgrown this year, but there were one or two places where they had been grazed short enough for the milkwort and the horseshoe vetch to thrive.


Horseshoe Vetch (Hippocrepis comosa).


Blue butterfly on milkwort.




Dingy Skipper (Erynnis tages) among the Speedwell.


Bobble-headed flowers of Salad Burnet (Sanguisorba minor).

The Quaking Grass and the Common Spotted Orchids not yet in flower, so summer cannot quite be here. But I found a few Early Purple Orchids still in flower, and a few Twayblades hiding in the tall grass.


Common Twayblade (Neottia ovata). Yet another plant that has changed scientific name since my copy of Blamey, Fitter & Fitter was published. (Well, it is a very battered old copy these days). "Common twayblade was formerly placed in the genus Listera, but molecular phylogenetic studies have shown that Neottia nidus-avis, the bird's-nest orchid, evolved within the same group, and the two genera have been combined."


Early Purple Orchid (Orchis mascula). Orchis meaning "testicle" and mascula meaning "male" or "with testicle-like tubers". I bet it wishes it too could be reclassified.


Corn Bunting (Emberiza calandra) singing on a hawthorn bush (though you may have to click twice to zoom in to see). A song like a jangle of keys. They used to be a common farmland bird. Now there are only about 11,000 pairs in the country. Badbury Rings is the only place I know where I can still hear them sing.

I haven't seen any St Mark's Flies this year. None at all. Anywhere.