29/05/2020 Homefield Wood, Buckinghamshire

Military Orchid (Orchis militaris): Today I found myself back in Buckinghamshire, this time on the hunt for another new orchid to the UK list, the military orchid.

Homefield Wood reserve is nestled in a beautiful part of the world, just north of the Chilterns. The reserve is a short stroll along a Forestry Commission track that intersects a woodland plantation. The military orchids can be found in a couple of meadows and are well sign posted.

The soldiers stood out like sore thumb as instead of the typical military camouflage outfit these military orchids wore a raspberry-ripple pink outfit.

This year I always seem to be a week behind, earlier in the afternoon I went to Hartslock Nature Reserve in Oxfordshire, to find a crispy looking monkey orchid, too dry and too hot to last.
And it was the same for these orchids, some were still looking fine with individual flowers in great condition but on the whole the colony was on its way out fro another year. 

Military orchids are pterry similar to both the lady orchid and to monkey orchid, they are all robust gregarious orchids. These orchids sepals and petals form an extended hood and in the case of military orchids they form a pointed hood likened to that of a soldiers helmet, but one which is pale on the outside and marked with darker purple or sometimes green parallel lines inside.

This was a really nice place and is know for fly, bee, spotted, common twayblade and white helleborine of only the later two I was able to find, although the helleborine was still in bud.

27/05/2020 Knocking Hoe NNR, Bedfordshire

Burnt-tip Orchid (Neotinea ustulata): After spending the morning surveying close to Milton Keynes I decided to make the most of my time down in this part of the world and hunt down dome special orchids.

Just north of the Chilterns is a small area of flowery chalk grassland known for supporting the only population of burnt-tip orchids to be found in Bedfordshire.

Knocking Hoe is also famous for more rare stuff including  moon carrot, spotted catsear, field fleawort, burnt tip orchid and pasque flower

As soon as I reached reserve, parking in the nearby Hexton Car Park and walking back along the public footpath towards the reserve entrance I soon found myself climbing a chalk hill. 

The specials of the site are the Burnt tip Orchids, found in small mesh protected enclosures, but a few rouges can be found outside this enclosure, all were marked with a red flag.

These were my first ever burnt-tips and was particularly surprised by their diminutive size.

It is so-called because the unopened flowers at the top of the flowering spike are dark purple appearing burnt while the opened flowers at the base of the spike are white or pale pink with raised purple spots.

These beautiful little orchids have seen one of the severest declines of all wild orchids during the last 50 years and is now very rare. A special flower that likes tightly grazed chalk grassland but has seen farming practices change with more areas being ploughed and the cusession of grazing livestock.

Looks like I got lucky too, the weather has been particularly dry and hot, there was even talk of a hosepipe ban on the radio during my journey down. The dry weather has sped up their flowering stage and many were on the way to going over and looking brown aroudn the edges.

I managed to find the last few in looking splendid.

23/05/2020 Northwick Warth, Gloucestershire

Collared Pratincole: A long overdue bird for the UK life list, after dipping two previously. Although not only did the bird remain at some distance the weather conditions were dreadful, with 40 mile per hour winds the bird kept hunkered down.

Still, despite the very poor record shots it snow on the list, a cracking bird to boot!

19/05/2020 Adderbury, Oxfordshire

Hoopoe: It would have been rude not have stopped off for this cracking little bird, considering I was working 15 minutes down the road from it!

Arriving at first light the bird showed well, if briefly a couple of times before performing a disappearing act.

Its beautiful down here, not only did I get lucky with the Mediterranean weather, I got lucky and saw this Mediterranean bird the only thing out of place was the large four wheel drives parked outside of the very well to do leafy suburbs of Oxfordshire.

I watched as the bird was fed on leatherjackets on a well manicured lawn on Rawlins Close, Twyford. Not only did the bird remained pretty distant, the birders who arrived throughout the very early morning kept their 2m distance too! Avery well behaved bunch.

To whom it may concern, you can attend a twitch, put out news of a rare bird and people obey the guidance.....

16/05/2020 Brockholes, Preston

Temminck's Stint: Today was my birthday and after a lovely morning having been spoilt by Dawn and our little baby Autumn. I was keen to set off out somewhere.

Luckily there are some very decent local birders who are still putting news of the local rarities and not forming cliques and suppressing news, I doubt a dozen local birders would have made a significant impact on the already awful Covid-19 statistics.

It was Bill Aspin who found the bird and broke the news. Thanks Bill.

Upon arriving the bird was foraging on the shores of pit no:1.

Here are some images I took this time last year during my birding trip to Lesvos, Greece.

Theses bird are tiny, greyish-brown waders with a white belly and short, stubby, yellowish legs. On these images from Lesvos you can clearly make out its yellowish legs.





Nice to have bumped in to Bill and local birders Mark and Gill Cookson, albeit from a socially approved distance.