Northern Marsh Orchid

This is a variant of the Southern marsh orchid, the Irish marsh orchid, the Hebridean marsh orchid, and no doubt many others.  But it is none of those, it is the Northern one, so belongs here and nowhere else.

Every year, on the Common between my house and the village, an area of some three or four acres I would guess, there are perhaps a hundred or so of these in flower.  This year there are hundreds and hundreds of them - they are everywhere.  Smaller than usual but super-abundant, I have never seen anywhere near so many.

There is usually a tiny one, sometimes two, growing just outside my garden gate.  This year there are about twelve there, and several more inside the garden where they have never been before.  Which makes mowing the lawns a bit of a faff, but who cares.

They're common, so no rarity value, but they are orchids and therefore a bit special.

If anyone has read this far and is still awake, I'm going to deepest Norfolk tomorrow for a week, to a w-fi-free cottage with no mobile reception.  So there may be a certain amount of back-blipping and no-commenting for a while.