The Ram's Head Orchid is Nova Scotia rarest or hardest to find native orchid. It prefers dappled light into alkaline soil usually on well drained side slopes. I went three times to find this orchid. No I'm not insane. The problem was the awful spring weather delaying the orchid by almost three weeks. When I found it June 16 some were already fading so clearly timing is everything with this orchid.

The orchid itself is the size of the fingernail on your little finger. It's small and often shrouded by a mantle of leaves. It also resides in tick infested areas so sensible precautions have to be taken.

I used a telephoto lens(560mm F8, full frame) at slow shutter speeds due to the overcasting clouds and shady conditions. The plus side to the conditions is that there was no shadow to diminish the image quality. The antishake filter on my editing software kept crashing so I couldn't use it but I have no regrets. It was well worth the effort.

Ram's Head Orchid

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