Blown away by bird’s nests at Rudge Hill

Birds’ nest orchids (credit: Caroline Aistrop)

Driving along the A4173 from Stroud to Gloucester, you’d never know there was a national nature reserve hiding behind the hedgerow as you drive past the Edgemoor Inn. On the opposite side of the road to the Inn, stretching from the road up the hillside, Rudge Hill is a wildflower meadow with more orchids than you can shake a stick at. There are special members of the orchid family growing here – helleborines – and a wooded copse where a a rare orchid is in all its glory.

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It’s glow time!

At this time of year, there’s a female that shamelessly flaunts her figure and desire to attract a male for the night. She certainly doesn’t hide her light under a bushel and turns parts of Stroud into a ‘green light’ district with her unbridled desires.

But a one-night stand is all she craves and once that’s satisfied, her light is extinguished as she crawls away to lay her eggs and then die. More tragic heroine in a Charlotte Bronte novel than a Jilly Cooper pot-boiler.

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