I’ve been out doing a “good turn” all day. My dissertation showed some really interesting and hitherto unknown facts about Euphrasia and we now need to see if the modelling I did works at different times from my project. A young woman at Uni has chosen to do a follow up survey to see if what I found last year can be replicated. My job today was to take her to the five sites where I worked, show her where I found the plants and how I went about measuring them.

It’s been a round trip of 160 miles with a total stranger but it’s been a good day for a number of reasons – mostly because I was able to help her to locate three locations where there are populations of the very rare Euphrasia vigursii and show her that the plants are there this year. I helped her to collect her first data.

While travelling around, at one of the locations I noticed something rather wonderful – a wild orchid…then another…then another. Not all of the same species – three different species of wild orchids, all in bloom in a single location very close to home. This is one of the three. I believe it’s a butterfly orchid, of which there are two types that are hard for the novice to tell apart. Still, any wild orchid is a thing of rare and delicate beauty and definitely to be photographed!