First Wild Orchid of 2018!

May 21 2018  A cold and rainy day is predicted.  Marie and I had planned to go out today for an adventure in a swamp.  Well, wait just a minute.  Rain, swamp, cold, or stay home warm, comfortable, maybe get something done around the house?

I tried to talk Marie out of going.  I  knew we would see cool plants and things in the swamp.  But it is early morning, wet and cold outside.  Marie said we should just go.  So we are going to the swamp!

What a great day it was!!  We found our first wild orchid of the year!  Right there in the swamp - the cold, wet, rainy, gray swamp! 

                 Small Yellow Lady's Slipper

 

 

 

I'm so glad we went!

Yankee Springs Recreation Area and Ronald H. Warner Sanctuary

May 21 2012 We drove ~65 miles southwest to Barry County Michigan to Yankee Springs Recreation Area, Long Lake trail.


From "Stormhorn" blog, http://stormhorn.com/  we knew to find Small Yellow Lady's Slipper orchid on this trail and hearing there was a quarter-mile stretch of boardwalk through part of the swamp that surrounds Long Lake, oh, sounds fun!  Thanks again to Stormhorn.


We have been to Yankee Springs in the past, the Devil's Soupbowl, Graves Hill Overlook, The Pines.  So many neat places.  We even camped at Deep Lake years ago, but how I never knew about this Long Lake trail, I don't know.


So this is what we saw...

Small Yellow Lady's Slipper (Cypripedium parviflorum)  Orchid

 

We walked about a mile and a half to a meadow with some old foundations. 
Here is the meadow...

                            Cow Vetch

  Yellow Goat's Beard (Tragopogon pratensis) Aster family  with fly.


The next few pictures are of a American Copper Butterfly, I'm pretty sure. 
He seemed as interested in me as I was in him.

After the Long Lake trail we drove through Gun Lake State Park, and stopped at the Long Lake access site.

Now it was after 2 pm I wanted to run over to Ronald H. Warner Sanctuary (Michigan Audubon) to check on a Puttyroot orchid there.  We had seen the leaf of this orchid last fall.  So off we go traveling a few miles east to Warner.  We didn't find Puttyroot.

We did find a field with pansy.  Another late day, but wonderful even though it was cloudy all day.