Quest to see the Late-spider orchid.

I spent much of last summer traipsing around Kent looking for the native orchids we have here after being inspired by the orchids I previously saw at a visit to Park Gate Down and having to do a presentation talking about it as part of my countryside degree.

This year, unfortunately, I've been less able to do so, but decided to head out to the Wye Downs to look for the late-spider orchid, a species I missed the past year whose range is limited largely to east Kent. They superficially resemble a Bee orchid (see below) but tend to have a wider lip, a central 'H'-like marking, and the two upper petals are short, pink and triangular ranger than greenish and square-ended in the Bee.

So I decided to pay a visit to Wye & Crundale Downs, a site reputed to have around half of the UK's population. The problem is that the orchid is only around 10-40cm tall whereas the site is about 112 hectares and I had no insider knowledge of where to look - a needle in a haystack would have been easier!

So we walked around (carefully!) in a couple of areas to see if we could find anything. We also walked up to the Wye Crown which I, in my naive ignorance, assumed to made from chalk as we were surrounded by chalk downland, but was surprised (and a little dissapointed) to realise it was painted flint.

We saw the reddish tinges of horseshoe vetch, yellowwort, milkwort, soapwort, crosswort and many other fantastic chalk downland flowers. Day-flying moths proved more abundant than butterflies and shiny turquoise green beetles sat on flowerheads.

Other orchids were also present including fragrant, bee, and pyramidal orchids.. but we saw no late-spiders. Still, now I have an excuse to go back and visit next year!