We clambered into the damp wood. This Water avens greeted us, it was about 3 feet tall.
Bird's nest orchid. It is not past its best, this is how it looks. It hasn't flowered here since 2012. Nearby were 3 Broad leaved Helleborines but they are not flowering.
After the scramble back through thigh high damp ferns and over rotting tree trunks on steep banks we walked back through the graveyard field strewn with hundreds of Common spotted orchids we walked down on to the shore to look for the Thyme Broomrape.
It was lovely to see the Hare on the rocky shoreline - every time we come down here we see him/her. P had given good instructions and S spotted them first (see extras) on the cliff face, on a ledge. They are a distinctive rusty colour and only a couple of inches high. (If you view the extras large you should be able to spot where it was!) Another first for me.
These two plants are both quite unusual. Bird's nest orchid looks dead when it isn't and Thyme broomrape is a parasitic plant living off, not surprisingly, wild Thyme.
So far we have seen 11 of the 14 orchids found on the farm this year, with only Bog, Lesser twayblade and Early marsh to go.
This afternoon Friends of Calgary Beach met to discuss what to do with the toilets and campsite this year, and it was decided it was safer to keep them open because if we didn't who knows what mess will follow. So they were pressure washed and cleaned while the rest of us beach cleaned and some removed last winter's storm damaged fencing.
