Twelve flowers to spot at Conwy in June

As Spring drifts into Summer, birds are becoming quieter and more elusive as they are busy feeding their young and starting their feather moult. Now is a great time to look out for other nature around the reserve. Some of the most colourful are the flowers, and June really starts to see them bloom. We have recorded 356 species of flowering plant on the reserve, though there are certain to be some we have missed. You can download our current list here (pdf).  If you find anything that isn’t on the list, please let us know, with as much detail as you can about its location.

So, we’ve put together a photoguide to 12 flowers that you should easily be able to find as you walk around Conwy this month. Of course, we would ask you not to pick any flowers from the reserve and to be careful if you are photographing them. Sadly, each year we find bee orchids trampled down, often when people have been kneeling down to get a photograph of another one.

Bee orchid

Spikes have increased from a couple of dozen to over 250 in recent years. Look along the side of any of the trails, where they like the disturbed ground, from early June to mid July. The stems are smaller than many people expect, usually no more than 20cm high.

Common spotted orchid

We only have small numbers at Conwy, usually found at the west end of the Ganol Trail, flowering in June and July. It’s the only orchid here that has heavy blotching on the leaves.

Pyramidal orchid

We only have a handful of these, so you have to look carefully. They can pop up anywhere, but the verge to our entrance road is one place worth a look.

Southern marsh orchid

The wet areas along the Ganol Trail – and especially alongside the footpath to Vardre Viewpoint – are excellent habitat for this species, which flowers from late May to the end of July. You can expect to see 1000 spikes in that area alone. We’d love an expert to be able to tell us whether we have northern marsh orchid, for which North Wales is at the southern end of its range, but hybrids make identification a real challenge!

Cuckoo flower

This flowers in May (when the cuckoos return to Britain) and continues to mid June. It is also known as ladies smock and, in Cheshire, milkmaid. Look in wet or damp areas, such as along the margins of our ponds.

Bird’s foot trefoil

This is a life-support system on the reserve: it’s a really important pollinator and food plant for many insects, including common blue butterfly. Along with buttercups, they form a yellow carpet in the grassland through June and July.

Common centaury

These small pink ‘stars’ bloom from late June through to September, though the flowers close up in wet or cloudy conditions, or if you’re here first thing in the morning!

Kidney vetch

This isn’t a common plant at Conwy as it prefers bare ground, but look for the small yellow flowers on little woolly bases, which spread in clusters over the ground.

Ox-eye daisy

Throughout June, thousands of ox-eye daisies bob in the breeze alongside the A55 road junction close to the reserve. There are a few pockets of them on the reserve too, especially in the fenced-off meadow area behind the Coffee Shop.

Red clover

This low-growing pink flower is in bloom all Summer, and is a great pollinator; bumblebees love it! Look in the fenced-off meadow area behind the Coffee Shop, on the hillock near the playspace, and along the trailsides in the area grazed by our Carneddau mountain ponies.

Yellow-wort

These are in flower from June to September, and are distinctive because the leaves on each side of the stem are fused together. It’s a member of the gentian family, and its petals close in the afternoon. They do well here, on sandy soil, so look at the sides of the trails, especially in the area grazed by the ponies.

Yellow rattle

This plant was new to the reserve in 2014, with a single plant flowering on composted material that had been washed up during a storm surge in December 2013. In 2017, we found many more plants, both along the estuary and in front of the Coffee Shop. It’s an important hay meadow species – it used to be said that when the seed pods ‘rattle’, the hay was ready for harvest.

Photo credits: thanks to Colin Metcalfe (common centaury, germander speedwell, kidney vetch, pyramidal orchid and red clover) and Jeff Cohen (ox-eye daisy)