Looking for Native Orchids on Whidbey Island

[ronaldhanko]

Whidbey Island is just off the coast and can be reached by a bridge from the north. It is one of our favorite places for native orchids and for sight-seeing. Hope you see a little of its beauty through our eyes (and cameras).



Many more pictures here:
Serendipity and Orchids: Whidbey Island

[tuvoc]

What cool shot!

Kim

[WhiteRabbit]

Fabulous photos as always. Reading the comments on your blog I see that it seems someone uprooted the Candy Sticks Gah - don't you wish you could just shake sense into some people???

Ah! Banana Slugs! hehe I love the yellow ones, tho they're a bit off-putting at first lol. Don't know if you know, but UC Santa Cruz mascot is the Banana Slug!

Thanks again for sharing!

[ronaldhanko]

Thanks Kim and Sonya for checking the link and commenting. Sonya, I didn't know about the mascot but love it, and as to the Candysticks, it is a shame, but people can be really thoughtless. I don't understand why they would just destroy them but so it is.

[WhiteRabbit]

Yeah I don't understand why people do those kinds of things

Leave it to UC Santa Cruz to have a slug as a mascot! hehe

[ronaldhanko]

I think that is really funny - someone had a great sense of humor.

[greenbean]

Great shots as always, Ron! I went across Deception Pass once with my family while the bear grass was in bloom. One of the denser areas I've seen for it, just beautiful.

Your unidentified flower looks a bit like Trientalis borealis, starflower, though it's harder to tell from that angle and it would be an exceptionally dark pink form.

[ronaldhanko]

You nailed the ID on the unidentified wildflower, Evan. Thanks! Hope you get back to Deception Pass sometime. Thanks for looking and commenting, too.

[greenbean]

You're welcome, Ron. Trientalis is one of my favorite native flowers. I've never seen one that dark though. Cool find! Maybe the northern populations are darker than the ones in southwest WA.

I hope to get back to Deception Pass sometime, too. For the foreseeable future, though, I'm on the East Coast. Massachusetts at the moment, and in September I move to Pennsylvania. Next week I'm going to a place called Eshqua Bog in Vermont. Some people that just got back this weekend from a trip there counted over 500 Cypripedium reginae just along the trail! They were just starting, so I'm hoping they'll still be going when I make it up there.

[ronaldhanko]

I am exceedingly jealous

Have to say, though, that we went to Dog Mountain in the gorge last week and saw thousands of Ghost Orchids. It was an incredible hike.