The Quiet Picture

You know you’re in the mountains when a herd of reindeer runs past your window while you’re having breakfast!

Today’s planned excursions were the Hamrafjället and Vättafjället mountains. Hamrafjället is something that no botanist should pass by, in fact the nature is so special that it’s protected as a national park. Just a few metres from the parking lot, and I already found an orchid that is definitely no orchid I’ve ever seen – a hybrid if there ever was one. Part spotted heath orchid, part… frog orchid? A bit further up, I found an orchid that was a genuine species, and a new one for me. Small white orchid (Pseudorchis albida), just the one, so I didn’t have many options for shooting it. And it also seems to be a touch past its prime. Regardless, it counts! I’ve added the image to the orchids page on minnak.net.

Despite the multitude of flowers in the forest, the first real attraction on the excursion was a large marshy area just below the forest line with no less than six different species of orchids plus other flowers. Despite this, I did surprisingly little shooting, just a few frames to add some species to my collection but nothing serious. Until I found two butterflies resting on a fragrant orchid, that is. The butterflies were clearly alive as they moved a little every once in a while, but otherwise they were just sitting tight on the flower and didn’t even mind me removing some grass blades. Shooting was tricky though, because the flower was constantly swaying in the wind. I rattled off a good few frames (try 42) to make sure that I got at least one which is sharp, and that’s just about the result I got. Glad it’s digital!

Time flies on these excursions, and this one had taken over 5 hours even if the distance was just a couple of kilometres. I headed back to cabin for a much needed late lunch, and then drove to Tänndalen to catch the trailhead for the Vättafjället excursion, where my guide book had promised that some common spotted orchids would be growing next to the path. Even if I earlier swore that I’ve finally confirmed my discovery of the Dactylorhiza maculata ssp. fuchsii, later on I got some second thoughts about it. So this time… if I see something that reminds me of the species, then surely it must be it! As it happened, I saw one about 20 metres from the parking. And search as I might, it was the only one – the rest of them were more or less definitely Dactylorhiza maculata ssp. maculata. So is this the real McCoy then? I still don’t know! Why can’t I find something that would fulfil all the 4 signs I have for separating these two species from each other?

Another slightly questionable new species I found was Norwegian wintergreen (Pyrola norvegica). Just as with the spotted orchids, P. norvegica and P. rotundifolia were long considered to be the one and same species. The flower looks about the same, but the easiest thing is to look at the leaves – P. norvegica has shiny oval shaped leaves and this wintergreen I found certainly had such. It also looks like the round-leaved wintergreens don’t like the mountains, so the Norwegian (sub-)species takes over instead.

I have taken 249 pictures in two days, that’s a new record for me. The number of keepers is slightly less impressive though…!

I had another look at the round-leaved wintergreens I had dismissed as un-photographable yesterday. With some generous gardening – and by that I mean weeding – I was able to get a clean background so I guess you could call this destructive photography rather than creative, I feel kinda bad for doing that. I have make a bigger effort to learn to control the background clutter compositionally, rather than to remove it altogether. Anyway, I can now check off Pyrola rotundifolia from my “wanted” list, I just wish the grasses didn’t have to suffer for my art…

Cropped a little bit all around. And observe the light band of very OOF grass in the lower right corner, in spite of all the weeding.

Common wintergreen (It normally grows upright, but this one was leaning so I could get weird landscape diagonal!)

Last year I discovered one-flowered wintergreens (Moneses uniflora) and round-leaved wintergreens (Pyrola rotundifolia) too late to shoot them, so I was determined to get them this year. Only problem was, I wasn’t seeing either of them in the locations where I found them last year, but after exploring the forests around me, I found them elsewhere. So I got my one-flowered wintergreens, but none of the round-leaveds showed any immediate photographic potential so they are still on my “wanted” list. But as if to compensate for it, I have discovered two new wintergreen species – the green-flowered (Pyrola chlorantha) and then today, the common wintergreen (Pyrola minor)! That’s a lot more wintergreens that I was expecting. I don’t know why I haven’t seen these flowers before… my only theory is that now that I’m trying to learn botany, my eyes have finally opened up to see the flowers around me. It seems like not a weekend passes by without a new discovery. That can only be a good thing!

Green-flowered wintergreen

If I thought that yesterday was windy, then today was hopeless. All I could do was to scout, so I was all the more happier when I discovered some long-lost flowers nearby. I was actually looking for the round-leaved wintergreens (Pyrola rotundifolia) and found one (count them, o-n-e) where they were plentiful last year. At least it wasn’t withering like the ones I found last summer… But then when I least expected it, I came across a patch of one-flowered wintergreens (Moneses uniflora) and this was truly a joy, because I haven’t seen any of these either in the spot where I discovered them last year (when they were already withering). I had almost given up shooting this tiny flower at all, but it looks like the forest will continue to surprise me if only I take the trouble to keep looking.

Canon 100mm f2.8 macro, ISO 200, f3.5, 1/40

Since the flowers were growing in a small depression in the forest, protected by trees, the wind wasn’t too bad and I decided to endure the mosquitoes that seemed to have flocked to this same sheltered spot. Photographing the one-flowered wintergreens is a lot like shooting cranberry flowers, minus the light!

Canon 100mm f2.8 macro, ISO 400, f3.5, 1/60