Saturday 7th March 2026

There is an orchid that grows on a canyon wall between two of the UK military bases on the island that is so rare, it is the number one tick for orchidists.

It is of a species more common in Israel, Palestine and Syria, but here on Cyprus maybe half a dozen plants cling on, thriving in the water of a small spring.

But before then:

Up at seven, as it is the weekend, the hotel is packed, so to get a prime spot on the terrace for breakfast, you have to be first.

The terrace was indeed empty, apart from the group of waiting cats, who purr for titbits and morsels, although the owner does feed them actual cat food.

Unattended plates are likely to be raided. But we are wary, and always post a guard over left plates.

This was to be a long day, so we left the hotel at half eight, heading to Paphos along familiar roads, then past the airport to the side of a hill where a rare Wheatear might be spotted.

Unbeknown to me, the hot weather this week had evaporated my allergy nasal spray from where I kept the bottle in my camera strap. This I didn't find out until the second stop. So on the way to the third stop, we looked out for chemists, and in a village, luckily found three almost next to each other, the second had something that would work!

But until then I sniffed and coughed gently, as I felt an allergy attack coming on.

Rain had already begun to fall, so Richard and I stayed in the van while the others tried to spot one, but didin't.

The rest of the group wandered around, eyes on the skies and bushes, in the hope of seeing a small black and white bird. Try as I might, I can't get excited about birding. Or rather I can, its just the time commitment and the cost of long focal length lenses. Orchids can't fly away.

So back aboard the Skylark, and off to a mountainside, dominated by two decade old turbines, we set about looking for reptiles.

All the harder due to the rain, hail and thunderstorms.

We walked up the track in a storm. Rain fell, wind blew and thunder echoed around the hilltops. Finding reptiles seemed unlikely, but if you look under rocks, however.

Under rocks we found a lizard or two, and a fine adult gecko, as you see here.

And there were dozens of Ophrys iricolor to see among the shrubs, all brightly coloured and bejewelled with raindrops after the storm.

And again back down to the van, now in bright sunshine for a drive to the canyon.

Alarms had been sounded every day this week, but the site is known to the police, so after passing through one base, into the valley, we park next to the canyon wall, where the handful of plants had begun to flower a full month early, and one of the plants at the roadside was in flower, so we could get shots of Epipactis veratrifolia.

You can see lots of them later in the year, high on mountaintops, but this small colony is all to see in March. If you know where to look.

There are large straggly plants, but clearly helleborines, and at the end of two steams, they were just in flower. So we all took our turn to get shots.

That done, scramble back into the van for another long drive through Limassol to a green valley, and a track lined with more orchids, and where we would eat our snap.

A farmer was tending hi hives, and the bees were already pissed. What better then than a fat English bloke to try to sting? I battled past one persistant bee, who was trying to fly, apparently, in one ear and out the other. I only just escape unstung.

We stop at the end of a trail, where a small colony of Orchis italica could be found ain among the strubs beside the road. Some took shots, I already had plenty.

We turn back for the van, and me thinking about how nice an ice cream or ice cold beer would be. No bees to run the gauntlet from this time.

The afternoon was getting on, and we had one more site to visit: a picnic area near the centre of the island's lacemaking industry. Here hundreds of Ophrys elegans thrived, and we took shots of many of the plants in the hour we wandered around But also saw signs of where plants had been dug up.

And from there it was a two and a half hour drive back, but on the way we stopped at a huge café for drinks. Huge it was, with dozens of tables, but only three being used, as most shops and cafes had already closed at three.

The café had seating apparently for several hundred, but there seemed to be no staff. But a waitress did come out and took our drink orders, though I just had a Coke.

An hour's blast along the motorway back to Paphos as the sun sank in the west, and the road gave us views of the sunset over the calm sea.

It was nearly dark by the time we got back, so we went straight into the restaurant for dinner, as there was a huge party of local walkers in for the night, and they were going to have a disco.