First Fly Orchids in flower

We've been moaning about it being more like winter off and on for weeks. Today it really was like winter. I did some checking around the nature reserve this morning and it was just 5 degrees most of the time, even when the sun was out. All the flowers and insects seem to have suspended development...and I'm leading a walk on Saturday to show people the wonderful wildlife at the reserve! The only bright spot today was finding a handful of Fly Orchids, Ophrys insectifera, with their first flowers out. There are plenty more in bud or just pushing up a flower spike, but I don't think we will see the 250+ spikes that we saw last year.

It is a wonderful little flower, much smaller than people expect after seeing close-ups in the wild flower books. Every year, around the middle of May, I have to get my eye in again, looking for the long thin leaves with parallel silvery lines along them, followed by the spikes with pale green tight buds and finally the purple-brown velvety flower. This amazing flower simulates the appearance of a female digger wasp so well, complete with grey-blue 'speculum' and exactly the right pheromones, that the males wasps are attracted to attempt to mate with it. This 'pseudocopulation' results in the two hanging pollinia, seen at the top of the flower, becoming stuck to the wasp's head in just the right position to polinate other flowers that are visited. Pretty amazing, eh? And at least I've got something to show people on Saturday.