As the birding slows down, there’s always orchids to keep interest up. The dodgy weather seems to have slowed things down, but there are now large numbers of orchids on the Downs. Around the Cissbury Ring area there are a large number of Common Spotted Orchids, and nearer to home in Sompting there is a bank with over 1000 Pyramidal Orchids on (they’re not all out yet) and, better still, 50 Bee Orchids, the first we have seen there in the 26 years we have been down here.