Every year, the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland (BSBI) hold a citizen science photographic opportunity at New Year and we would like you to join in. To participate, you need to take a photograph of a wild flower blooming between December 29th 2024 and January 1st 2025. Email it to us by midnight on 2nd January 2025.
Make sure to include details of your name, an identification of the wild flower and where the flower was blooming (a postcode or grid reference would be great but the name of the nearest place will be fine.) We will send a group entry of all of the photos to Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland. In addition, we will display all of the photos on our website for everyone to enjoy. Below is some more information about BSBI. "The BSBI is for everyone who is interested in the flora of Britain and Ireland. We trace our origins back to 1836, when the society was founded as the Botanical Society of London. We are now one of the world's largest contributors of biological records: our data inform scientific research and underpin evidence-based conservation. Whether you’re new to plant hunting or you’re already a botanical recorder, we need your help to discover which plants are managing to bloom in the middle of winter across Britain and Ireland. Thousands of people take part in the Hunt every year and this is helping us build up a better understanding of how our wild plants are responding to changing autumn and winter weather patterns. The more we know, the more we can help conserve our wild plants and all the other wildlife they support." Good luck with your quest! We are looking forward to seeing what you find. Find some top tips for your plant hunt here ![]() Don't forget we have our Christmas drinks and a talk from Georgina Starkie on Dormice ecology and conservation on Thurs 12 December at the Victoria Hall, Tisbury. Doors will open at the earlier time of 6:30pm for drinks and food, with the talk starting at 7:30pm. Georgie has extensive experience of dormice, having worked under the late Michael Woods and she delivers training for organisations such as The Mammal Society and the Wiltshire Mammal Group. She has worked as an Ecological Consultant since 2006 and has experience in ecological site appraisal, in particular for protected species and she holds Natural England licences to survey for bats, great crested newts and of course, dormice. (c) christmasstockimages.com, via Wikimedia Commons
I spent a week in North Norfolk during the autumn birding in the numerous nature reserves along the coast. During the autumn migration one never knows what is going to turn up and the number of birders out and about every day means that many rarities and less common birds get picked up and reported. I was reflecting on how things had changed since I made a similar trip in the late 1970s. Back then, as well as binos and telescope, unless you knew the area and were a real expert, one had to lug around maps and field guides in pockets or a backpack. Now all you need is your phone and, depending on your interests, a handful of apps. The OS app gives you all the maps you want at a range of scales. Most reserves have a map board at the car park; a quick photo of that on arrival and you can navigate around the paths and hides with ease – rather than relying on memory as in the past.
One of the more frequent autumn migrant rarities is the Yellow Browed Warbler and there was a scattering of them along the coast on my recent visit. Like many warblers, this bird can be hard to pick out as its olive plumage and small size means you often only get a glimpse as it flits through the foliage. Now though you can prepare for your search by “swatting up” with an app. I use the Collins Bird Guide – like having the book version on your phone but with the advantage that it can play recordings of the bird’s calls and song. This is so much more useful than the somewhat bewildering verbal descriptions in the book. Telling the difference between two species on the basis of the one calls “hu-itt” and the other “hweet”? Hmmm. But after repeatedly listening to the recording on the app I found the Yellow Browed Warbler easy to identify when I heard it in the field. And after spotting it in the bushes I could then confirm my identification with another phone app – Merlin. This records birdsong and calls around you and identifies the species. It is not infallible but, with sufficient understanding of what you are expecting to see, it can be really useful to clinch sightings. Other apps such as Obsidentify and Picture This are available which help you identify plants and other species of animals from a photo and in most cases to report where you found it. Similarly for birds, Birdtrack run by the British Trust for Ornithology allows you to record what you are seeing while in the field and then submit the results when you get home. Other apps are available for other groups or species. Ideally, we want to be able to report our sightings of wildlife and so enlarge our knowledge of its distribution and health, so these apps are a real boon. Even if you don’t have an appropriate app, a photo can later be shared with local experts – often in area or species focussed WhatsApp Groups or forums – who may be able to identify what you have snapped. So, the combination of all these phone apps and GPS which allows data loggers to track where you are at all times has really changed looking for and recording wildlife. With ever advancing AI one does wonder whether we will soon be able to wander through an area, scanning what we can see and hear through the phone, and this will instantly convert into geographically positioned and dated species lists. Which, although great from the point of view of getting good records, rather removes the sense of achievement from seeking things out and identifying them. We’ll see, but a phone is much lighter than loads of guidebooks, so I know which my back prefers. Andrew Graham We are so fortunate to live in this beautiful part of the world but also, we are incredibly lucky that so many people with expertise and interest in our natural environment live here too and are willing to share their knowledge with us too. On Thursday November 28th Dr Jolyon Medlock, Head of Medical Entomology, Porton Down, UK Health Security Agency talked to us about Ticks, mosquitoes and diseases.
An uneasy but fascinating listen for many of us, Jolyon took us on a tour of the world of ticks and then of mosquitoes and the diseases that they carry and transmit to us and other creatures. Ticks are arachnids and metamorphose. They lurk on plant stems as nymphs where they “quest” for a suitable host to feed from their blood. They latch onto their host – they do not run or jump or fly. They have two key requirements: a moist microclimate or high humidity for survival away from a host and available hosts for blood-feeding. They are found in habitats with suitable microclimates and hosts e.g. woodlands, heathland, grassland, parks and gardens. They are most active between March and July. The significant diseases they carry are Lyme borrelliosis, tick-borne encephalitis, babesiosis, anaplasmosis, rickettsial disease (spotted fever), relapsing fever and Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever. Jolyon’s message is – be aware, check yourself and your children’s and pets’ skin after being outdoors. Seek medical advice if you get a fever, rash or feel unwell after a tick bite. Mosquitoes are insects. There are 36 species in the UK. Some species cause nuisance biting. Most are associated with wetlands. Some are only in tree holes. Some species are very common in urban areas. They can fly approximately two hundred metres and so they are being transported in cars, trains, lorries and planes to reach further away from their origins. Jolyon and his team are surveying for ticks and mosquitoes to enable governments to prepare for future contingency plans as climate change warms our world giving better environments for ticks and mosquitoes to survive and thrive and as we travel further and faster taking these unpleasant companions with us. Mosquitoes are a food supply for many birds, fish and other creatures but ticks have no purpose but to make a pleasant day out turn into a potential medical emergency. You have been warned! Emma Procter We recently had a talk by Robin Leech on monitoring rivers (particularly, the Wylye). Robin is an ecologist employed by the Wylye farmer cluster and he spoke about some of the work he does with his farmers, involving monitoring river pollution (chemical and sedimentary) and also re-naturalisation. A lot of what he spoke about theoretically applies to our river, the Nadder.
Many of us who are interested in river pollution (to stop it!) have all probably heard by now a lot on eutrophication, nitrates and phosphates, and there was some debate at the talk on the representativity of these indicators of the extent of the chemical pollution in rivers and also on the randomness of establishing a “safe” level of pollution. But Robin also spoke about something a bit novel: colourimetric analysis to find out where the sediments in the river come from, to target sediment run-off at source. Colourimetric analysis involves taking samples of sediment from the river, putting them in an oven to burn the organic matter and dry the grains and then put the dry remaining sample in a machine that analyses the colour - this allows to compare it with a reference collection of sediment samples from the surrounding areas of a river. He also spoke about their new project to restore the natural floodplains in some of the Wylye and the renaturalisation of the river system, which is something that will hopefully occupy many conservation organisations in the future. The straightened courses of rivers, with high banks, not only is detrimental to wildlife (for example, water voles) but also, in heavy rain, sends high quantities of water downstream, producing flooding in towns, and also sediments due to the erosion of the banks. Restoring the natural course of rivers not only will promote wildlife and natural processes and reduce sedimentary pollution, but it will also have the added benefit of reducing flooding in sensitive areas (the flooding needs to happen whether we want it or not, but if the river is allowed to flood a floodplain, then it won’t flood a town further down!). Inés López-Dóriga |
Photo: Avocets (Izzy Fry)
The headers display photos taken by our members. Do get in touch via the Contact Form if you'd like to submit a photo for selection.
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