White helleborine

Quite a wildlife- dominated day. First, we met with our friend  C, who had arranged to meet an ecologist from the local council to discuss how the chalk ridge near us is  managed this summer to protect the  glow  worms which we know are there. Last year we fear some got mown. This year we are going to do systematic monitoring of the glow worms each evening for about a month, and the  ecologist will manage  the mowing regime to protect them.
As we walked to the meeting we noticed some White  Helleborine flowers, (Cephalanthera damasonium) very  near our house, growing  under Turkish hazel trees. We have never seen them there before, although know of a couple of other local colonies growing under beech trees. We think  No Mow May may have spared our  plants from being chopped by council grasscutters.  It is a kind  of orchid which only grows  on lime or chalk. I will return to photograph them again , and attempt to show better how the flowers  twist around the stem.

This evening (for the first time I chaired the  AGM of our little local wildlife group, which as usual, we held in our wildlife area. We had  a turnout of  eleven people  (more than  half the membership) and we talked for nearly two hours about our plans and ideas for the wildlife area and other  projects in  the parish, in which we can be involved. I was very pleased with everyone's  enthusiasm and  commitment, even  after seventeen years since  the group was founded.