Nice butterflies and lots of fabulous orchids!

Dark Green Fritillary today on Hutton Roof (Click over to enlarge)

Monday 26th June 2017 - Hutton Roof 0930hrs to 1100hrs

Today was great for butterflies and had Small Heaths, lots of Ringlets, odd Small Pearl Bordered and a beautiful posing Dark Green Fritillary who just loved to be photographed!!  On my way up I had some Marsh Tits calling which was very nice, also the odd Chiffchaff and Willow Warbler.  On my way back down I also had a "Whitethroat" calling away. 


It was very bright and difficult for photography and still had that wind in the background making it difficult, but did manage to get a few shots. which I will put on here:

Spec No.33 (Schmal) on 26th June 2017 (Click over to enlarge)

This is a good strong plant which the bottom flowers are now showing Lemon-Petalled. Closeby we also have at least five more helleborines.  But one of these is "special" and about 10" extremely light green throughout.  Its probably 3 to 4 days from actuall flowering and I can't wait to see what it produces. For now here is a close up of the lemon-petalled on Spec 33.

Spec 33 on 26th June 2017 (Click over to enlarge)

These light epichile's and bosses are striking! Also you can see the yellow petal just forming.

Next is one of my old favourites.  In fact it is the first specimen I am aware of on Hutton Roof which confirmed the striking appearance of that "Lemon Petalled" back in 2014. I think we firstly classified this as a "Lutescens" but since I have gone for the "Lemon Petalled". It is stronger than ever at 18" tall and although I have not as yet counted the flowers, I would bet there will be somewhere about what we had last year eg: 21 flowers.   

The beautiful Spec 55 Lemon-Petalled now showing
Click over to enlarge - see next photo

This next photo is staying with 55 but showing a mid section of the plant and its striking flowers and lemon-petalling.

Specimen 55 - Lemon Petalled on 26th June 2017
(Click over to enlarge)

Specimen 55 today (Click over to enlarge)

A lovely trio of atrorubens - within days (Click over to enlarge)
Photo: 26th June 2017

I counted at least 9 plants of the Specimen 9 family and below is 9d and followed by 9a. You can see the likeness of green colouration and build on all of them and they all sit within a radius of approx 20ft diameter.  It stands out a mile to me from were they have come from, and just so you can agree or for that matter disagree here below them is a photo of "Mum" but please don't ask me which one!!.

Specimen 9d on 26th June 2017 (Click over to enlarge)

Parent Specimen 9 or Schmals 9 from 2014 (Click over to enlarge)
Unique colouring of these never seen before on Hutton Roof 

This is a older photo here from 2014 of which they have a "unique" colouring of which I have never seen any others similar on Hutton Roof prior to finding these.  Sadly they have not been with us since 2015. Although we caged them back in 2015 in hopes to protect them, something still managed to get at them (possibly slugs) and give them the snip and they have not re-appeared since that year. Or what I should say is that these plants have not directly appeared however it is quite obvious we are getting (up to 10 now at least!) offspring which I am sure must be from this particular plant because of that "unique" colouring and not only that they all fall within a geographical radius of some 20ft diameter of those originals.

And last for today (below) shows a "atrorubens" which has been predated with a slug.  You could easily be forgiven for thinking it is a deer because its a reasonably good horizontal snip but when you check it carefully you see its full of "slug slime" in the circled areas. 

(Click over to enlarge)
Slug predation on atrorubens on 26th June 2017