The Glow-Worm- 25th June 2022

 After I had tracked down the Serapias vomeracea orchid in Suffolk, I then decided to check out some more orchids, but these broad-leaved helleborines were not flowering yet, so that will be for another time. I chose a target closer to home, and one which has captivated me since 2020, when I first tried and failed to find and see them despite perfect conditions for them. The glow-worms. 

For me, seeing rare insects that glow in the dark was almost as exciting as seeing many of the orchids I saw this year. The reserve where I would go to see them also has a nice moon carrot population, which is another extremely rare plant in the UK. But it would also mean staying out until after it was dark. 

When I got to the reserve, I first went to the roadside nature reserve to look for moon carrots- there were 3 to 5 of them already flowering here, and one of them looked especially nice. I'm not sure why exactly it was called that, but the flower does look slightly like the surface of the moon, if you imagine it very hard.

The moon carrot occurs in only six locations in the UK, and this small stretch of grass by a busy road was one of them. The plants are said to glow in the light of the full moon, though I have never witnessed this. The last time I thought I saw it, I confused it with a wild carrot on this stretch of grassland, and my only moon carrot pictures from then were long-range pictures of plants on the chalk pit walls. 

After I was done here, I went to the East Pit with its precipitous chalk cliffs, and began to wait. I didn't start looking until it was properly dark, this being the summer taking place at a very late hour. The first time I looked, I didn't see anything, but then it wasn't that dark at that moment. But then I looked a second time, and almost immediately saw a faint light glowing on the edge of a shallow depression in the East Pit. It was a glow-worm. 

Excited, I took many pictures of this glow-worm, by which point it got properly dark and when I finally went to look for more glow-worms I encountered two other glowing females almost immediately, all paired up with male glow-worms (which looked nothing like them)

After I had done a short loop around the depression and returned to the place where I had seen the first glow-worm, I saw a constellation light up in the East Pit

And afterwards, I got nice close-up views of one of the beautiful glow-worms in this depression

As I was leaving, another glow-worm was glowing in the vegetation close to the entrance