Belated Spider Orchids

At last...... finally...... after many hours of tramping the Folkestone escarpment of the North Downs, I've found one of the colonies of Late Spider Orchids. There's only a handful of small colonies in Britain, all on these East Kent hills, and although the one at Wye is well-known the others are understandably kept secret - hence my searching.
V.S. Summerhayes in his seminal book Wild Orchids of Britain describes the lip "which is thought to resemble the body of a large garden spider, is four-angled rather than circular [as in the bee orchid] and often widens somewhat towards the front. At the very tip it is furnished with an upturned fleshy three-lobed appendage". A true scientist, he comments on the fine detail but perhaps loses something of the jovial character and beauty of the flower.

I counted 28 spikes and in some places they were growing with Man and Pyramidal Orchids.

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Notes from the shortest night..........

A Tawny Owl landed on a small tree as I sat on the patio in the dusk, drinking my late-night Ovaltine. It looked at me, I looked at it, then it silently flew back into the trees.

This was followed by some strange wheezing sounds, as if a child was quietly snoring. I found a torch and picked out a young owl on a branch nearby, still wheezing.

We visited Clowes Woods to hear Nightjars; shortest night/bright moon, so they were late - a Woodcock passed twice on its roding flight at about 10, followed by a Nightjar at about 10.15 - churring away on a high exposed branch.

Walking back to the car, we saw two glowworms in the grass, glowing - not flashing while flying like the ones I saw in Italy.