Orchid totals

In the end it has proved an excellent year for our Common Spotted Orchid population. My blog of 5 June had us at 27 orchids. Now we have reached a total of 43 (as of today 17 June - make that 49), a 33% (make that 53%) improvement on last year and that despite a plague of rabbits which I am sure have removed a few that would otherwise have come through. Most encouragingly there are two individual orchids well outside the previous area where I have found them. One is at the opposite end of one of the fields that has an orchid population and one is in a field where I haven't found orchids before. I am now hoping that we can get to 50 (make that 60) next year but that hope is I guess dependent on factors out of my control such as the weather. The photo is of the intrepid orchid establishing a bridgehead in the field that had none in the previous three summers we have been here.