Observing orchids

Recently I have been helping with a project called Orchid Observers, at the Natural History Museum. The aim is to get members of the public to send in photos of 29 key species and also participate in a crowd sourcing project to help us check transcribed data on old herbarium sheets and help to confirm the identifications of orchid photos. We should then be able to analyse the data to compare the flowering times and see if we can detect the effects of global warming.

As part of that I have been watching my local population for Early-purple Orchids at Moor Copse NR and today I caught them just coming into flower so I took a few photos:

The rest of the site was also spectacular and it seems like last night’s rain has really perked everything up. The could cover let me get very close to the Green-viened White with my iPhone and further on the Bluebell fragrance was getting quite heady. Alexanders seems to be taking hold along the river bank too and I helped myself to a bit to make some “Alexanders Gin” … more about that later! 😀