Lake District, May, Day 2

Barely light, I lay in bed listening to blackbirds singing to each other around the site.  The liquid, bubbling notes of the nearest came the tree near the van.  This early, the many rabbits on the site were out feeding and were confiding.  It was cold out, though, with a chill wind, grey skies and 'spitting in the wind'!  Hopefully the day will improve.  Plans are to check out the green-winged orchids at Silverdale, lunch at Leighton Moss so we could buy some bird seed for the bird table.  Lastly we needed to go to Kendal for some essential shopping.

In the event the weather was so cold and gloomy that we decided to be lazy, have lunch and then go out.  In the fullness of time, full winter gear donned, we pulled up outside the new post office in the centre of Silverdale, gathered together camera and drawing equipment and set out.  We walked down the slope, past the old post office and through the narrow gate stile into Post Office Lots.  The first meadow was being grazed by cattle so contained no orchids.  Squeezing through another gate stile set in the limestone wall we were immediately among orchids.  The first swarm comprised mainly green-winged with some early purples well past their best, but it was blowing a hooley which made photography difficult.  Further down the field we could see another couple, also intent on orchids, disappear into a hollow so we decided to investigate.  Here were more orchids, this time all green-winged. Despite being cold and windy it was surprisingly bright so low ISO and high shutter speed were no problem.  This orchid, rare in the UK, is very similar to the more common early purple, the main difference being the lateral sepals (wings) marked with parallel greenish brown wings.  The leaves also have no purple blotches unlike the majority of early purple.  To find these beautiful flowers numbering in their hundreds, was a delight and so, job done, it was time to move.  Having had lunch at 'the unit' we just called in at Leighton Moss for bird seed and then called in at Booths in Milnthorpe rather than go into Kendal before retreating to the warmth of the van.  As the evening progressed the weather became increasingly gloomy until it was very definitely raining.  Fingers crossed for tomorrow.

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