Photo-a-Day (Monday, 13th June, 2011)
Wild Orchid
Photo: Geoff Charnock (Panasonic TZ5.)
A nice clear picture, orchids are one of my favourite flowers.
Happy to see these orchids are beginning to flourish up there, they are a welcome sight.
Nice sunny picture....lovely,
These orchids have been around the Wigan area for many years. There used to be a field full of them in Spring View - but they've been built over. Another field, along the line of the Central railway at Lower Ince, also had a good show each Spring - but the Council stopped their annual mow of the area, and the orchids can't make it through the increasingly dense grasses etc. The site of Westwood Power Station also had a large colony, but much of that has been disturbed by development there. I sent a pic to Brian, showing one growing beside the road in Lower Ince - and I have two orchids, one a Bee Orchid, on my lawn, and two on waste ground beside my house. I expect there are many more sites in other areas of Wigan.
I've been told that their seeds were spread along the line of the local railway system, having been carried eastwards in the slipstream of trains coming from the mosses to the west of Wigan.
Think this is a Marsh Orchis, they seem to attract Burnet Moths, a brilliant blue coloured moth with red markings.
very nice picture.i think i have seen the very same orchid myself.