I went to the Happy Valley Wildlife Management area in early june to look for some arethusa bulbosa, which also goes by the name of Dragon's Mouth orchid. I was told that the previous year there had been a dozen or so flowers at a certain date, and since things seemed to be flowering quite early this year, wanted to look a bit early to see what they look like coming up in bud. I didn't find arethusa, but found a few other interesting things.
two orchids in bud whose identity I wasn't sure of, but decided later
that it was definitely rose pogonia.
a rose pogonia in bud, with an old seed pod from last year
a small slice view of part of the upper section of the pond with boggy
areas on both sides. nice water lilies flowering out on the water
swamp cinquefoil
blurry snapshot of small pitcher plant with even smaller sundew
three-leaved lower plant is bog buckbean
possibly tufted loosestrife?
very blurry snapshot of what I think is early coralroot (an orchid), gone to seed
flower of pitcher plant
on the northeastern edge of the bog, I found some nicely open
rose pogonias, quite early!
closeup of a nice rose pogonia, just opened
sundew!
a colorful damselfly which posed nicely for me. i've noticed that (with some
advice from clark), if approaching animals/insects and wanting to take picture,
keep the camera over your eyes. even though the lens looks like an eye, two
eyes together seems to scare them off. I was quite close to this one
some seedling orchids growing out of a rotten nurse log. I assume that they
are platanthera clavellata (club spur orchis), but they could also be
platanthera obtusata. i'm thinking though that it would be too 'warm' in this
location for obtusata as it likes quite cooler spots like nelson swamp in very
shady conditions around the same general latitude
I wanted to come back to confirm that no arethusa had come up this year, but decided to go up to rainbow shores to look instead. this spot isn't far away, so will look again next year!
two orchids in bud whose identity I wasn't sure of, but decided later
that it was definitely rose pogonia.
a rose pogonia in bud, with an old seed pod from last year
a small slice view of part of the upper section of the pond with boggy
areas on both sides. nice water lilies flowering out on the water
swamp cinquefoil
blurry snapshot of small pitcher plant with even smaller sundew
three-leaved lower plant is bog buckbean
possibly tufted loosestrife?
very blurry snapshot of what I think is early coralroot (an orchid), gone to seed
flower of pitcher plant
on the northeastern edge of the bog, I found some nicely open
rose pogonias, quite early!
closeup of a nice rose pogonia, just opened
sundew!
a colorful damselfly which posed nicely for me. i've noticed that (with some
advice from clark), if approaching animals/insects and wanting to take picture,
keep the camera over your eyes. even though the lens looks like an eye, two
eyes together seems to scare them off. I was quite close to this one
some seedling orchids growing out of a rotten nurse log. I assume that they
are platanthera clavellata (club spur orchis), but they could also be
platanthera obtusata. i'm thinking though that it would be too 'warm' in this
location for obtusata as it likes quite cooler spots like nelson swamp in very
shady conditions around the same general latitude
I wanted to come back to confirm that no arethusa had come up this year, but decided to go up to rainbow shores to look instead. this spot isn't far away, so will look again next year!
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