After walking from Scurlage to Port Eynon to Horton, I proceeded to Oxwich and Oxwich Burrows.
On arriving at the reserve I went to check the small group of bee orchids I had found near to the entrance last year. While an individual had been sadly grazed the number of flowering spikes had increased to 4 from 2 last year.
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| The first group of bee orchids (Ophrys apifera). From left to right: a fully 'out' flowering spike, a unopened small spike, a bursting open spike with pale sepals and a grazed flowering spike. |
Bee orchids weren't the only orchids at the site though. There were plenty of early marsh orchids and some southern marsh orchids. The pyramidal orchids were just spikes, not yet fully blooming, with the bottom 'rung' of flowers out- there was a single fully flowering specimen. By some early marsh orchids there was a very prominent common twayblade.
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| Common Twayblade, Marsh Orchid Sp. and Pyramidal. |
Around the plentiful floral meadows there were lots of butterflies. While there were no marbled whites, there were many small blues and the odd brown argus thrown in as well.
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| From left to right: small blue, small blue, common blue and brown argus. |
As I was leaving Oxwich Burrows to enter Nicholaston Burrows I came across a phenomenal sight. In a single dune slack there was over 35 bee orchids. I've never seen such a density of bee orchids, many of them with one or more flowers out, on the flowering spike.
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| Some of the many flowering spikes. |
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| A single orchid with two fresh flowers. |
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| Some oddities: left: an oddity yet to fully open, middle: a faded flower and right: a flower missing the central lobe. |
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| The dune slack containing all of the orchids. |
In Nicholaston Burrows, I then came across an adult slow worm. This has to be the largest slow worm I've seen: an estimated 50cm in length!
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