First Orchids of the season Minchinhampton Common 15th May 2016

A wonderful sunny day with not too much breeze, almost perfect conditions to photograph Orchids.

I passed a few Early Purple Orchids on my walk but it was the large colony of relatively rare 

Green Winged Orchids I wanted to see. This year there seemed to be hundreds if not thousands of plants flowering including white varieties and some light pink examples too.

Please click on the images once or twice to view at full quality

Early Purple Orchid for comparison 

Early Purple Orchid Flower in close-up again for comparison.

Green Winged Orchid Flower , the green stripes that give it's name clearly visible.

A light Pink example , there were a few dozen of these around.

A much rarer pure white variety, I found three plants but there may be more.

These are not albino as the green chlorophyl is still present.

Another pink plant with pollination in progress 

A little of my thumb to give an idea of scale 

A third small white example hiding amongst the daisies