Exactly a week after my first wild tulip foray on the 10th of May I managed to get back to this area of the Picos de Europa regional park to try my luck again.
On the way up the San Glorio pass we stopped at a meadow to get an idea of what was flowering now and found Tongue orchids, Serapias lingua, Early marsh orchids, Dactylorhiza incarnata, the yellow variant of Elder-flowered orchid, Dactylorhiza sambucina, Globeflowers, Trollius europaeus, Spring squill, Scilla verna, and carpets of the wild daffodil, Narcissus pseudonarcissus, still providing a lovely foreground for the distant mountain views although the previous week's tiny Narcissus asturiensis had finished flowering at 1,700m.
At the top of the pass we were treated to a pair of Short-toed eagles hunting snakes and lizards.
Over the other side Pyrenean Snakeshead fritillaries, Fritillaria pyrenaica, were just coming into flower and (after only 15 odd years of trying) we found flowering Wild tulips, Tulipa syvestris spp. australis!
A not-to-promising first view of the tulip meadow.........
......but finally...
