June is Orchid Month

Heath Spotted

A year ago The Diary was celebrating a second good year of discovering West Ardnamurchan's wild orchids.  It seems incredible that it took us some fourteen years to notice this beautiful flower, particularly when they really are very common here during their season - there are nine beautiful Heath Spotted orchids a few hundred metres from here, blooming in a ditch right beside the road.

Northern Marsh

It's not that we walk around blind to things that are going on around us, but it's true to say that we often don't see something until we notice it - if that makes sense.  The first orchid we 'noticed' was flowering in an Ormsaigbeg croft field, and was so richly coloured that we couldn't miss it.  It was a Northern Marsh Orchid, and its relatives (above) are still doing well in the same field.

Northern Marsh orchids have the worrying habit of thriving in the short grass along several of Kilchoan's roads.  These verges are cut, once a year, by the Highways Department.  Last year the cutting took place at a disastrous time, and we lost many of the flowers, but this year Highways made up for it by cutting just before the orchids bloomed, much to their advantage.

Fragrant

Having 'noticed' orchids, we're now finding them in more and more places.  It's unusual for a location to be host to just one of the more common species, but in some lucky spots we're finding three or more species living together.  The Ormsaigbeg croft field where we first found a Northern Marsh orchid is also host to a fine display of Heath Spotted, Common Spotted and Fragrant orchids.

Common Spotted 

The Heath Spotted and Northern Marsh seem to be the first to appear.  In places the Northern Marsh orchids have already all but disappeared, their brief year over, but the Heath Spotted, being the most numerous, are still appearing.  The later ones are often the tallest, making an impressive display.

In some ways, it's sad to see the orchids go.  On the other hand, if they didn't die off, we'd be deprived of the annual excitement of finding the first wild orchid of the year.