Views of Chalk Meadows at High Elms

The Conservation Field.  High Elms Country Park, 30 May 2012.

In High Elms Country Park there are three chalk meadows, all with extensive interesting plant and invertebrate life.  They can also be beautiful.  They change their appearance month by month; in winter they look bare, and in summer there are flushes of different flowers in different seasons.   I have been there many times, and this link will show you all my posts which contain at least one photo from there: High Elms.

The meadow above is usually the prettiest of the three.  In this photo there is a flush of yellow Meadow Buttercups.  Later there will be white Oxeye Daisies, and after that, mauve Scabiouses. 

Before anyone asks, or if anyone asks, I took great pains to keep my camera level when taking these photos.  It has an internal level sensor which I used. The meadows do slope, facing south, and the trees do grow at an angle on the edge of the woods.

Burnt Gorse using the in-camera High Dynamic Range feature. High Elms Country Park, 30 May 2012.

Burnt Gorse was the old name for this field, and it has been retained, or perhaps reinstated.  This is the field that I like best.  Its flora and fauna are always diverse and interesting in the season, even though it doesn't look as spectacular from a distance as the Conservation Field.   It has grown since I last photographed it and it is now full of life.

There is a narrow extension off to the right of this photo where I always find moths, butterflies and beetles.   And there are orchids, which are prized for their rarity.  Some orchids are showy, and some are not.  Some are so much not showy that they are hard to spot.  The best meadow for orchids is this next one.

The Orchid Bank.  High Elms Country Park, 30 May 2012.

The ground here is almost pure chalk, and in some spots it's quite bare, but even so there is a rich flora.  You have to get down and look, something botanists do almost without thinking.  (I have just deleted a paragraph that says exactly where the orchids are. Unscrupulous collectors exist.)

When orchids look like the Common Twayblade or the Man Orchid, they are very hard to spot without some practice, and even those with pretty shapes and colours like the Bee Orchid are not really conspicuous.  Here are some of High Elms' orchids from a post last year.

There are several other openings and glades with orchids and other plants, and the woods also contain interesting things.  For example, Parrot Waxcaps, Glowworms, and a pit where bats hibernate. I am lucky to live only 10 minutes' drive away.

I'll finish, not with a flashy orchid, but with some Twayblades, green and inconspicuous.

Common Twayblade, Neottia ovata.  High Elms Country Park, 30 May 2012.

Here are the flowers close up.

Common Twayblade, Neottia ovata.  High Elms Country Park, 30 May 2012.