Wagner Natural Area

At the beginning of June Gerald and I ventured to Wagner Marl Ponds to look for wild orchids. Now I don't know much about orchids yet figured I would take photos of any flowers in bloom then attempt identity later. I had expected the bugs to be bad but didn't fret, I knew that our natural mosquito repellant was in the vehicle and we could squirt some on our clothes upon arrival to the bog, but the repellant was not where it should be. The mosquitoes were abundant and voracious so it ended up being a speed walk with most of the images blurred due aggravated body jerks as the little beggars needled my hands and buzzed my face. Anyhow, today Gerald suggested we check out the Marl ponds again, but we got smart and stopped by the fabric store for noseeum mesh and I quickly stitched up bags for our heads, I wore my rain coat and leather gloves, but my goodness was I hot, too hot, but I wasn't bothered by mosquito swarms. The mesh made seeing clearly difficult so I put my camera on auto focus even though its not as good as manual focus I did get some okay images of wild orchids.

Saline Shooting Stars

 labrador Tea

Field of Saline Shooting Stars by the board walk.

 Marsh Marigold. These top four photos were taken beginning of June. The rest were taken today.

 A tattered Blue flitted about my feet on the path.

 Still have some flowers to identify, such as these pretties.
Common Fleabane

  Prickly Blue.

 Lady Slipper Orchids were abundant early in the month and many in bloom now.

 Not sure but these may be orchids.
Thanks to David I now know this is an orchid past flowering, these are pods of the Early Coralroot

Tall Bluebell 

Dwarf Raspberry

 Round Leaf Orchid, these tiny beauties are what I was after, the individual flowers are tinier than my baby finger nail, delicate and o-so-charming. There is a call out for orchid images for an exhibition in Oct so intend to paint wild orchids delicately in watercolor.

Bunchberry are in full bloom, these are very white. The camera doesn't capture white detail well on auto focus but theres no way I was going to lift my protective netting to clearly see to use manual focus.

 Bunchberry carpet.

Twinflower carpet.

Twinflower

 Marl Pond natural springs though the forest.

 Bog violet?
David has informed me this is Common Butterwort which is a carnivorous plant, how cool is that. Now I am excited to have the chance to return for a closer look.

 Shooting Stars were few today, most have gone to seed already. You can see the dampness reflecting off the ground cover behind the pretty stars. I like how they face opposite directions.

 Northern Green Orchid
I may have to send these images to someone in the know as I am finding it difficult to identify with conflicting names attached to it on the web.

 The flower close up, I'm not sure if its quite in full bloom yet.
confirmed, Northern Green Bog Orchid.

 The Marl Pond is a natural mineral spring fed pond. We are really quite lucky this area has survived as I have read that this is home to sixteen wild orchids species, of course I only found a few though am sure if we go out at different times we may see others as one lady told us that there were many more in bloom last weekend than now.

 The path is flooded with Toad tadpoles swimming about, we had to cross carefully.

Pink Elephants Head ?

 Our handy bug nets, they worked well. We heard various bird song throughout the muskeg forest though they were elusive.

Starry False Solomon's Seal blossom sporting a fly.

 Wild Rose complimented by a white spider sporting matching pink side stripes.

 Clouds brought in wind gusts and a wee bit-o-rain. Looking back at the path as we headed for the van.

 Tiny butterflies hid amongst the shrubbery to avoid the raindrops.

Star Grass