As per usual I am going to say that I will be looking out for new orchid sites this year, and not re-treading the same old ground; but, of course I will. Some places really deserve a second of third look, and some are a delight to visit over and over again.

A reasonably mild winter and an early spring blast of warm weather seems to have brought the orchid flowering season well forward this year, by a matter of two or three weeks even, and my first excursion happens even before an early April trip to Sicily. Unfortunately commitments I cannot wriggle out of have made a hoped for trip to The Burren nigh on unlikely for 2019, and other pie-in-the-sky ideas have taken a tumble due to 10 days in France for the Le Mans 24 Hour motor race getting booked in January. I shall be on the lookout for orchids over there though! Meanwhile things are getting off to a good start, but with a few disappointments. Read on for details. During April and May we have managed to visit some new and good ites, but there is a sting in the tail to this. Namely, it makes finding new sites to visit in 2020 even harder.

By the end of June we have been to twelve new orchid sites (that's one third of the orchid sites visited so far), but have not been able to tick off anything new; and at three places we seem to have missed out on the full orchid flora. It also seems that the flowering times are now closer to normal, perhaps just a week early, after the start of the season flower rush.

July is by far the busiest month of the year with 24 places visited, half of them were new boosting the new site ratio to 40% of those visited this year. 2019 has not been beset with droughts like 2018, so we started off hoping for some great Epipactis days. The star site was Hutton Roof Crags, but some great finds elsewhere. Read on!

After a relatively disappointing long weekend it was good to be able to get to some great local orchid sites in August. UK Places visited in 2019 rose to 74 with 25 of them new to us. Rounding off the year it seems I have not ticked off a single new species in 2019, though there have been new variants and hybrids seen. This is not surprising, as anything new species wise will mean long distances to travel in far-flung parts of these islands. Planning 2020 will commence soon enough!