Fen orchids in the Norfolk Broads

This must be my 'favourite' orchid. Not because it is both pretty but looks like a weed, but because it is adept for hide and seek. For 2 and a half hours did I seek last year before I found it. This remained the record for eluding my efforts until a fungus at Windsor Park, Rubroboletus legaliae, took 4 hours and 20 minutes to find. 

The fen orchid is a most unusual flower which lurks in the depths of fens. Separated from the bog orchid by specific habitat requirements, the population of fen orchids has crashed precipitously over time in the UK, and it has now virtually disappeared from nearly all sites it once frequented. Significant conservation work was started to save the orchid from near-certain extinction. Unlike efforts with the platinum orchid and the red helleborine, these efforts were very succesfull, and now fen orchid has become quite common at a few select sites, and has been succesfully reintroduced to others. It is still classed as Endangered in the UK, and is extremely rare. 

Most of its sites are either dunes or fens with unstable ground. One such site is very beautiful, and has a flourishing population of the fen orchids, which are slowly expanding in numbers here. 

I visited on a sunlit day, unlike last time. I knew where to look this time because of last year, and found a clump of fen orchids practically immediately. It was a magical feeling, standing in a fen surrounded by these tiny fen orchids, some with eye-catching pale yellow flowers, others with a colour which looked more green, and all of them with most unusual, and very pretty, flowers. Joining these flowers were some nice-looking leaves. 

Photos don't really convey the true size of orchids, unless it is a lady's slipper, and this plant is no exception. To convey a sense of the size of this orchid, I decided to take a scale photo. Yes, that is how small it is. The flower is smaller than my thumb. 

I did take a brief look around in some other areas, but there were no fen orchids there, and the marsh helleborines were not flowering yet, unlike last year. I am interpreting that as a good sign for my red helleborine trip next week. I then returned to the colony, locating a beautiful and 'large' fen ochid which I had missed earlier, perhaps the best-developed one out of all of them, lurking in the vegetation like a ghost. Indeed, given I do not believe in ghosts anymore in the UK, this plant in my eyes can rightfully be called the UK's real 'ghost orchid'. Apparitions of old are long gone from the woods, however. 

The sun kept coming out and hiding behind clouds, illuminating the fen orchids or plungin them into shade, providing a nice series of photos. Initially I concentrated on the unusually-shaped flower, but then turned my attention to the entire plant, which I could fit very easily into the frame. 

After quite a bit of time taking photos of these lovely orchids, I headed back. This would be my last big orchid trip before the red helleborine venture next week, the rarest UK orchid. The 'other' rarest UK orchid, which flowers more regularly, is the greek plowshare orchid, Serapias bergonii, which has concluded flowering this year. Surprisingly, it was confirmed to me that the orchid was not planted there, suggesting the now quite high possibility that it arrived here naturally, which would be incredible.