Barren hills

[puddleshark]

I went walking on the hills in search of Autumn Lady's-tresses orchids, but, after a summer of drought, the hills are brown and bleak and nearly flowerless. Even the Harebells are absent from their usual haunts.





Dried grasses, dried thistles, dried heads of ragwort. On the hillside the European Gorse taking its annual summer break from flowering - during July and August it hands over flowering duties to the Dwarf Gorse on the heathland, so that there's always gorse in flower somewhere. (The traditional wisdom has it, "When gorse is out of flower, kissing's out of fashion".)

I found only two spikes of Autumn Lady's Tresses, in a place where, in previous years, it has been abundant - but it wasn't quite in flower.


Autumn Lady's-tresses (Spiranthes spiralis). A few inches high. Tiny white flowers spiral up the stem.


The scrub and the hedges full of blackberries, rose-hips and elderberries. But not that many berries on the hawthorn here this year, and not a single sloe on the blackthorns that I could see.


The north-facing side of the hill looking greener than the south, but still the farmer is having to feed hay to his cattle.

Above the hilltop, the air full of the swoop and chatter of swallows. They are starting to gather.