Wild Orchid time is starting!

 Hi everyone. I hope you and yours are well. 

Just a short post from me today as we are busy helping our son and daughter-in-law paint their new house. Very exciting times for them. 

It is winter here in Australia and some of the wild orchids are starting to appear in our bushland. Orchid hunting is one of my favourite things to do especially as it gets us out into natural bushland. We are lucky to have a few places to find orchids in our area. 

Last Friday we went walking through the Manea Park Reserve as a fellow orchid hunter had told me where to find the helmet orchid - Corcybas recurvous. This is an orchid we have been unsuccessfully searching for for years. So I really felt lucky to have someone tell me where I might find them. Even with directions it took a little hunting, and then there they were!

They flower from June to September and only in a relatively small part of the south west of Western Australia. We found these in dry leaf litter under tuart and peppermint trees. 

These orchids are tiny, and like to hide in leaf litter so you really need to look carefully and then be careful where you tread. The leaves are only about 8-20mm across. They grow in large colonies, but only a few flower each year, so I think we were very lucky to see so many flowers. 

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Below here you can see the flower head close down by the leaves. Evidently once they are fertilised the flower stalk elongates by as much as 300mm to aid seed dispersal. We will go back in a couple of weeks to hopefully see this. It was so exciting to finally find this orchid and add it to our list after so many years. 

Other wild orchids we have seen in the last few weeks at Manea Park you can see below here - clockwise from top left - Bunny orchid, Scented autumn leak orchid, Hare orchid, Banded greenhood orchid, Midge orchid, and the Shell orchid. These, especially the hare orchid and the midge orchid are so tiny it is difficult to find them. Also their mostly green colouring makes them difficult to find. 

Above is the midge orchid. It looks a bit like a mosquito - midgie! 

You often have to get down in the dirt to photograph our wild orchids. I should carry a kneeling pad and a small tripod might help too. Here I am using my 100mm macro lens. A tripod would have been handy as it was low light in the shade, and hard to hold the camera steady while on my elbows! Next time! 

Only a few other wild flowers were blooming, including this sticky Sundew. But spring will soon be on its way and each time we visit we will see more flowers. Lucky for us it is only about a 15 minute drive from home. 

And if you are lucky you might see a kangaroo. This was taken last year, I think she has a joey in her pouch 

Thankyou so much for visiting today. Do you have a favourite bushwalk to see wildflowers. Perhaps you would like to tell us about it in your comments. 

You might also like:

Going for a walk? Take your camera

Manea Reserve - Down in the Western Australian bush this week - December 2021

Hunting for wild orchids - Western Australian wheatbelt - September 2021

Thank you so much for stopping by. I value your comments and look forward to hearing from you. I will try to visit your blogs in return. Have a wonderful week. 

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My corner of the world through my camera 
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Thankful Thursday 
Welcome to Nature Thursday

Skywatch Friday

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