The Quiet Picture

After the huge disappointment last year when I found someone had cut all the lady’s slipper orchids in one location, I decided I have to do something. I can’t stand watch there every day, so I ended up creating a sign where I pointed out (in a gentle manner, no accusations!) that all orchid species are protected. I offered one of my pictures as a print as a trade-off for anyone who had planned to pick the orchids this year as well.

I put up the sign a couple of weeks ago and today I visited the location to see how the orchids are doing. My sign was still up and so were the orchids! Although to be honest, I don’t think anyone has been there at all, even to look at them. The local folks normally check another location, which is exactly why I’m now visiting this place instead because I don’t want to add to the wear and tear. I started to wonder if these people who pick lady’s slippers have possible also selected another location… but I can’t check them all.

So in this location anyway, the orchids were safe. It turned out that they are early this year, they are already starting to be over bloom and there were no buds at all. They were not as numerous as some other years and I noticed something interesting. I’m almost sure that they are smaller this year than they normally are. I noticed this with the calypso orchids as well, they were definitely smaller than normal. So I’m wondering what could be causing it. Maybe the really warm period in the spring which made them spurt too far ahead considering the season… The next orchid in bloom will be the lesser butterfly orchid, I saw a couple of individuals today which had just started to open up. So let’s see if those will be smaller than normal as well.

I also found some creeping lady’s-tresses orchids in early stages of bloom. But it is such a small orchid anyway that it’s impossible to say if it’s bigger or smaller than normal.

Exciting times anyway – I need to adjust my head to think that this really is summer now, because the flowers are popping up everywhere!

Yesterday on the way home, when I looked up from my book I saw a glorious double halo around the sun. It’s a pretty desperate deal to shoot through the bus window, but I had to try – I can’t remember I’ve ever seen a double halo. I just kept hoping that the halos would still be there when I got home, and this time I had luck on my side. They were fading and the rings were no longer complete, but both of them were still visible so I hurried home, put the fish-eye on the camera and ran back out, trying to find a decent spot to shoot from.

I think that this is the first time I’ve wished for something wider than 24mm. I couldn’t fit both halos in the frame, so I had to settle for partials. Although come to think of it, since the rings had faded out on the right side, I guess I wasn’t missing out too bad. But at least I was able to document the phenomenon and this time it’s enough. Btw, I was shooting at f/16 but it was impossible to get a starburst because of the thin veil in front of the sun, dispersing the light. Which made it possible for the halo to happen in the first place…

Afterwards, I did some reading to find out exactly how rare this double halo is. I found out that the inner ring is called a 22 degree halo and it’s actually quite common, even if I’m sure that I haven’t seen quite as often as they claim it occurs. The outer ring is a 46 degree halo and that’s the rare one, although it seems like a 46 degree halo can sometimes be confused with other halo phenomena. But having read the documentation and studied the picture on the linked page, I’m fairly sure that this was a genuine 46 degree halo.

In the first picture, the parhelia is clearly visible (the ray that is shooting to the left from the 22 degree halo) and it’s also possible to distinguish the tangent arc (on top of the 22 degree halo). In the second picture, the halos were seriously fading out and you can just barely make out the circumzenithal arc on top of the 46 degree halo. There’s also a curious cloud formation that looks like sun rays.

Cool. I learned something today!

I drove to the lady’s slipper orchid place I visited last week. It’s a small location, basically just an island of trees that were left standing when the forest around was cut many years ago. It slopes a little and I always enter it from the “lower end” where most of the lesser butterfly orchids grow, and then walk up to the lady’s slippers.

The lesser butterfly orchids are taking their time in growing, they are still only buds but they should definitely start blooming next week. Then when I was walking up, I kept looking for the familiar yellow of the lady’s slippers. Problem was – no yellow. I was starting to have a really bad feeling about it, and my worst fears came true when I reached the orchids. The flowers had been cut, all of them! My heart just broke. And then I got angry. The stupidity of people! First of all, all wild orchids are protected in Sweden. Although we are fortunate in having a few locations with lady’s slippers in Loos, you can’t call it a common flower by any stretch of imagination. People who know where the lady’s slippers grow, know for sure that’s it’s an orchid. Whether they know that all orchids are protected is another matter, but if you have to drive a small forest road to reach a remote location which is an island of trees left standing after a clear-cut operation, you’ve gotta be a total moron not to figure out that this was done to protect something precious. And we can also assume that whoever picked the flowers, did it because they like them. Is that the right way of showing your appreciation? By killing them? By preventing them from spreading? By reducing their chances of survival in the future years?

I was really really upset. It sounds crazy to be so upset for some flowers, but I guess I just found out exactly how much I care about these flowers.

* * *

My mood didn’t improve until later when I was walking around in my local woods, checking the two spots of lesser butterfly orchids here. They haven’t opened either and I was ready to give up on this gloomy day, when something caught my eye – an early coralroot! This is the first early coralroot I’ve seen in my local forest, and it was growing in an open spot which gave me an opportunity to take a picture of it in its environment. Granted, not a good picture, but it gives an idea of the environment. And having done that, I changed my angle to get a diffused foreground and background which brings up the modest flower and leaves the rest to your imagination. Maybe this is a ketchup effect… until last Sunday I didn’t have any early coralroot pictures from Loos, and now I find them so close to home!

But still, those lady’s slippers. I just don’t understand how people think. Or do they think at all?

I had found out that we have a rare primrose growing around here, bird’s-eye primrose (Primula farinosa). In fact, this is the only known place where it grows in the Hälsingland province and the flower is on the decline elsewhere in Sweden as well. We weren’t sure if it would already be blooming, but it’s better to be early than late so we checked out the place. We were happy to find buds, but then when we were already on our way back, we found some that were already in bloom. Oh joy! I just had to take a picture, ugly background or not… I will be back next weekend to photograph them better, most of them should be open by then.

With nothing better to do after lunch, I just settled down in my hammock to enjoy the warm day and started to read a book. Then I happened to glance at the neighbour’s garage and noticed that the ostrich fern behind it are beginning to unfurl. No time like present, I grabbed the camera to look at them through the macro lens. I was distracted by a caterpillar hanging from a bird cherry branch next to me, the wind was tossing it around and it landed on this leaf and looked luminous in the backlight. With a lot of patience and quick reflexes I was able to squeeze in a few shots, some of which were actually in focus – the wind was really not making things easy. And while I was up photographing the caterpillar, I noticed that the bird cherry blooms looked just perfect.

In the evening I took the Tricker for a spin. I had to cut it short because it was just simply too hot for the motorbike clothes. Warm days are not made for biking.

The way I figured it, I would only have one opportunity to get this right. If I wanted a keeper image of the calypso orchid, it had to be today – the flowers were starting to get past their prime. It was another dark and overcast day with a spot of rain, but that only made the flowers that much sweeter. I was able to go down to ISO 200 for a few shots but mostly I kept at 400, not my preferred ISO but I made an exception for this rare orchid and rare occasion. In this image, I used a reflector to light up the underside of the flower.

I am still buzzing about having seen the calypso orchid. I don’t have words to express how special I think it is!

Something very special happened today. I was contacted by a person who asked if I’d be interested in photographing the fairy slipper, or calypso orchid (Calypso bulbosa). Say what?! This orchid is very rare and I had known that it was borderline possible that there was one place nearby where they might be growing, but my intel was years old and I was sure that they’d be gone by now. This is the southernmost location for the flower in Sweden, but it doesn’t really get common anywhere in this country. Anyway, suffice it to say that I was indeed interested in seeing this flower. I mean, nevermind photography, just to see it. Imagine my amazement at seeing these flowers in surprisingly big numbers, there on the forest floor. This has got to be the most exciting flora encounter in my history as a flower photographer (or, ever)! It was late evening, overcast weather and dark forest so I was shooting at ISO 1600, cue lots of noise in the image. I don’t care. These could be the worst photographs I’ve ever taken. It doesn’t matter – I got to see the calypso orchid. It doesn’t get better than this!

White variant of the normally pinkish orchid, Wikipedia has more info