A couple of days ago we had a brief spell of semi decent weather, not sunshine you understand, just no wind or rain. So I decided to go up Glen Fender & photograph some of the wild grasses & flowers that inhabit these wonderful moors, with a special look at the wild Orchids that live there. Under no circumstances did I expect to see what I did see, but I will keep that until the last shots, as it was furthest on in my journey & thoughts.
So the first Orchid is one that we have in our garden, but this one is from up on the moors & is the Northern Marsh Orchid, fairly common up here but so bright & cheerful especially in it’s natural surroundings.
The two above are just variants of the same Orchid the Common Spotted, it can range through from the white to a deep purple not unlike the Northern Marsh above & it actually lives up to it’s name & is very common up here. A delicate & beautiful Orchid that shines out so brightly on these dull days.
If you look at the flower structure of this plant it seems to my untrained eye to be a cross between an Orchid & a Heather, it is in fact an Alpine Bistort & is very prolific up here, I like it & so do Greenfinches, saw a few eating the seeds.
After Thistles, Clover & grasses this is most probably the most common plant on the moors with the weird name of Ladies Bedstraw. As yellow is my favourite colour I love seeing this plant , being fairly tall it waves around in the wind & looks “proper hansome”, as some might say.
There are many different types of Thistle & as it is the emblem of Scotland thought I ought to include at least one.
Now follows a load of different plants I photographed while progressing uphill out onto the moors.
I also saw mainly these two butterflies feeding on this rich diversity of food, first ls the Common Blue & the Dark Green Fritillary, why it is called that is apparently the underside is dark green. My ambition is to get a shot of the Chimney Sweeper Moth that was also about, but is so small & fast I never managed it on this trip.
Now I have seen Curlew on the moors before & have got shots of them on the ground, but never managed to photograph them in flight, so this was a first for me, it could have been a better shot if I had changed my settings on the camera (the shadows are to dark & it needed a bit more definition) but to capture this was a bonus to me. Though in some ways the bird was a nuisance as it gave out a warning cry that I was about, which in turn gave warning to the creatures in the next series of shots, which came as a complete shock to me. But by alerting these animals allowed me to get some great shots once they saw me & was the surprise for my little jaunt out to take wild flowers. So here they are.
The first sign I had of these magnificent beast was this one looking over a ridge at me from about 150 yards away, I thought “wow this is a bonus a loan stag on the hill”, wrong.
Because the next thing I knew was this lot arrived from my left & out of sight of where I was standing. This time of the year all the male Red Deer get together away from the ladies .But then the whole herd came out on show, maybe 40 odd stags, before they decided my camera might be a rifle & ran off.
I think there are 30 in this shot & more behind them, I would never have seen them if the Curlew had not given out it’s warning call, as they were over a ridge that I would not have gone towards. I can assure you I was like a school boy in a sweet shop just totally elated & the adrenaline pumping, made my week & most probably month, a sight to remember.
Hope you enjoyed these shots, I intend getting some of the later flowering plants & grasses over the coming months, as I am so lucky to have such a rich diverse area on my doorstep & need to learn to appreciate it more..