Bee orchids that is.
Yesterday we received a report of some bee orchids flowering on the reserve. So after work I set out to look for them. Sure enough, over by the East hide I found this lovely example.
Bee orchids are commonest in the south and east of the UK, and is the county flower of Bedfordshire. The flowers themselves bear a passing resemblence to a bee, both in colour and texture. In the Mediterranean, pollination is assisted by a solitary bee which, attracted by the flower's scent which mimics that of a female bee, tries to mate with it and gets covered in pollen. In the UK though, the flower self-pollinates.
On the bird side of things, a bit of time spent in the hides on the way back produced three spotted redshanks, a party of dunlin, a couple of grey plovers and a group of black-tailed godwits. There were some sandwich terns being reported over the reedbed lagoon, but I didn't stop to search through all the gulls to look for them.
Reedbed, freshwater scrapes, saltmarsh and wet meadow. Frampton Marsh has it all! Come and pay us a visit soon.