April on the Wares

[puddleshark]

Early Spider Orchid (Ophrys sphegodes). Ophrys = "eyebrow" & sphegodes = "resembling wasps". One of those trickster orchids that pollinates through deception, luring in male solitary bees by pretending to be a female solitary bee.

"Not only have the flowers of the orchids in the group Ophrys evolved to look like specific insect species, but they emit an enticing cocktail of chemicals. These mimic pheromones released by the female of the species and lure males to the flower." www.nhm.ac.uk



Took a walk from Spyways Barn, near Langton Matravers, across the fields to the sea, in search of tiny strange orchids.


A warning to climbers and coasteering parties heading down to Dancing Ledge.




The Wares: crumbling dry stone walls, tangles of windswept thorn. Down in sheltered dips, the sun is warm, and a coconut scent rises from the clumps of golden-flowered gorse. Birdsong all around: dunnocks and wrens, chaffinches and chiffchaffs, greenfinches and goldfinches in the thorn. And skylarks singing overhead.


Skylark singing.


Dunnock skulking.

At first sight, only dandelions and daisies in flower on the short-grazed slopes.


A dandelion with small flowers, Taraxacum erythrospermum maybe?




After sitting on the prickly, slightly damp slopes of the Wares for a while, you begin to see the Early Spider Orchids, a few inches tall, hiding in the grass: