The Quiet Picture

After all the hyping I’ve done about the lesser butterfly orchid, I’m almost afraid to show the picture – risk for an anti-climax! But here’s the deal. I wanted to get a good close-up – a real macro, in fact – of the flower and the long spur. But showing the flower and its spur would require a side view and I don’t think it works, so the option was to find two flowers where one is shown from front and then the other one only by its spur. I was going to get all the petals in the frame but accidentally pushed the camera too close and got this “clipped” version and liked it, so I figured it’s worth trying. The question is, does the oof spur carry the dead space on the left or is this just weird? I have versions where all the petals are in, as I originally intended.

I have another idea I need to try with these orchids, but it requires that I go to another location and I didn’t feel like walking that far (uh… less than 1 km) in the oppressive heat. Instead, I drove to my favourite bog to see how all the other orchids were coming along, and was pleasantly surprised. For example, two weeks ago I didn’t see any early marsh orchid buds but now the place was suddenly dotted purple with them, certainly more of them than I’ve ever seen here. But the most exciting discovery by far – a common spotted orchid (Dactylorhiza fuchsii)! Many times I’ve seen heath spotted orchids (Dactylorhiza maculata) here which are very close to the commons but this is the first time I’m sure. I’ve mentioned it before, there is a very fuzzy line where heath (maculata) ends and common (fuchsii) begins. The biologists can’t even agree if they’re a different species at all… but that makes orchids all the more interesting. They are a relative new-comer in the plant world and are evolving right in front of our eyes!

Since it’s a long drive from Loos to Stockholm to catch the morning ferry, I drove to Älvkarleby for the night. It also provided me a chance to catch some sea air (not that I really crave for it) so I headed straight to the beach. I had planned to take some long exposure pictures of waves, but once I was there it just didn’t inspire. What I found all the more interesting was the barren pine forest and I tried long shutter speed here instead, moving camera up and down during exposure. Everyone and their brother does that at some stage of their photography careers and truth to be told, I rarely bother to get excited about such pictures. They all more or less look the same… so I won’t inflict my blurry pictures on you.

While I was walking around, I came across a map of the area, with some descriptions of what you can find here. The magic word was right there – orchids! So without further ado, I rushed back to the car and drove to closest parking and tried to find the trailhead. At first I almost ended up on a nudist beach. Naked people and me with a camera… I think the risk of misunderstanding would have been considerable! But I quickly found the trailhead and the common spotted orchids were the first flowers I came across, oh happiness! And this time, there is no shadow of a doubt that these are the real McCoy. They’re so Dactylorhiza maculata ssp. fuchsii it screams.

There was a promise of even more orchids – one of them new to me – so I followed the trail. Alas, I didn’t find new orchids but some other new flowers instead, including the biggest darn bluebell I’ve ever seen. Yes I’ve been living a sheltered life..

I wish I had had more time there. The coastal environment provides its own species for flowers, just the mountains did. If I ever take the same morning ferry again (in the summertime), I will make sure to do this same stopover in Älvkarleby but with more time to spare.

At the hostel, something gave me an allergic reaction. I couldn’t quite pin down what it was, maybe it was the place itself – Laxön (Salmon Island). I’m allergic to fish…

Finally, an overcast day with little wind! I had a list of eight flowers I should theoretically be able to shoot today, and when I finished my shooting, I had nine. Only four of them from my list, though! Amazing things happen… I wanted to shoot early marsh orchids and was happy to find them growing plentiful after last year, which seemed to have been an off-year for them. But I discovered something new – my #3 new orchid this year is a twayblade (Listera ovata)! I’m so proud I found it all by myself, after the two first ones which were shown to me.

Then I headed to the lesser butterfly orchid location to get some pictures in a more decent light than what I had on Friday. To get there, I have to walk a stretch through trail-less forest and I seem to be taking a different route every time because this time I came across something new. I had round-leaved wintergreens on my list, I didn’t shoot any such but now I got a green-flowered wintergreen instead! They were not in full bloom yet so I’ll be going back in a few days.

Having done the butterfly orchids, I dragged my gear up to the mine. There’s a patch of heath spotted orchids behind the main building and although it’s just about the most common orchid here, I don’t have any good pictures of it and this seemed like a perfect opportunity to get some. When I got there, I saw something bright orange at the edge of the forest – orange lilies growing here?! Well who am I to argue, of course I photographed them. And afterwards, find a co-operating heath spotted orchid to finish off my busy day. Except, I ended up with a common spotted orchid (Dactylorhiza maculata ssp. fuchsii) instead! This has always been something a grey area for me, I haven’t been 100% sure if I really had a common spotted orchid in my collection or not. But now, equipped with my new id skills, I am sure that I do.

Top left: twayblade; Top right: early marsh orchid
Bottom left: common spotted orchid; Bottom right: lesser butterfly orchid

Days just don’t get any better than this!