On a visit to the Trust’s mis-named Orchid Glade Reserve this year, you will have to look hard in the dense ground vegetation for Southern marsh orchids and twayblade. But you will be impressed by the towering Marsh thistles, scattered all over the Reserve, reminders just how wet the undrained clay ground becomes in winter. These thistles are now in bloom, and providing nectar for hoverflies and hungry bumble bees. In the car park, this is probably a female Bombus lucorum, eager to revive herself and to provision her underground nest.
