Almost Time!

So there are just three hours of 2021 remaining and then, finally, my Botanical Odyssey can begin!

Were I about to undertake a year looking at diptera, I'd be slightly concerned by the weather forecast. But seeing as I'm concentrating on all things botanical, I'm less worried about the initial day being a bit of a washout. Here's the forecast for my part of the world on January 1st 2022. Midday looks to be the worst part of the day, hopefully I'll have already relocated to the cover of Portree woods before the heaviest rain hits.

57mph gusts in the rain, y'say? Bring it on! 

Tomorrow I'm undertaking my first ever New Year Plant Hunt, as organised by the BSBI. Their recording app is now live and you can use it to undertake your own NYPH by clicking here. I've sketched out an approximation of the route I'll be taking in the map below. Doubtless I'll wander off piste from time to time and I expect I'll cut through the houses in the village in search of extra goodies (though I'm more likely to find a drunk fisherman snoring in a doorway) and maybe around the back of the community hall too, just in case there's anything flowering in a sheltered spot. I have three hours to complete the walk, I doubt it will take much more than two hours tops, and then I'll relocate down to Portree for a second NYPH. 

I'm confident of finding Annual Meadow-grass, Daisy and Gorse in flower, but the other three are nothing more than hopeful additions. I'll be disappointed if all I can drum up is three species though. 

Well, I guess that's it. Nothing to do now apart from await daybreak and see what I can see. Though I could maybe go out with a headtorch and get a sneaky headstart on my challenger down south.... 

Have a great New Year's folks, I'll see you on the other side of midnight.....

Early Plans

Two weeks, that's all that's left until we hit 2022. 

The first thing I'll be doing in January is participating in the BSBI New Year Plant Hunt. Then I'll be relocating elsewhere to do a second (and third? Fourth..?) hunt later that same day. I'm stuck at work until around the 18/20th January, but then I'm heading to Cornwall for 3rd Feb where I'm Best Man at my mate's wedding. Again. Hopefully it works out better for him this time! Before that I'll be touring around a little, meeting various folks in southern England, seeing lots and lots of lovely plants that simply don't occur this far north, and then I need to be back for work sometime near the tail end of February.

If I'm to have even the slightest hope of seeing a thousand species of wild plant in 2022, I need to make good use of my time whilst I'm down south. I did myself a spreadsheet listing various 'target species' I ought to take the effort to find. These target species need to be 1) at an identifiable stage in Jan/Feb, 2) alive (I'm not including dead heads or seedpods), 3) not easily available for me to find in Scotland and 4) they must be wild/fully naturalised. There are some surprisingly common species on the list, things like Mistletoe, Stinking Iris, Alexanders, Alder Buckthorn (I have my twig ID key!), Hoary Plantain, Black Horehound, Early Dog Violet, Annual Mercury....the list goes on.

Cornwall should prove to be very productive regards bumping up my plant yearlist (my lifelist too, I have gen for a few bits and bobs I've never encountered before. But more on those in a later post). Whilst south I'll do a little tour of some of my old stomping grounds around South London/mid-Surrey, I should be able to secure a decent number of species in the warmer suburbs. I'll hopefully drop in at Portland Bird Obs for two or three days too, there are some pretty special plants on Portland that I ought to try for whilst on my little tour and it would be great to catch up with Martin and some of the regulars again. It really has been far too long since I last visited. Plus I'll be staying with my good friends Mark Telfer in Bedfordshire and The Ghost down in Hampshire. Plenty of opportunity for me to scope around and find some decently 'southern' plants!

Purple Toothwort seen in Feb 2018 in Hants. And hopefully in 2022 too!

Toothwort seen in Dorset in Feb 2018. Again, hopefully I'll see this in 2022

Greater Snowdrop found naturalised in a Hants churchyard during Feb 2018

Alpine Cotula in Yorkshire - a bit of a detour but I may try for it on the way back up again

Planning for the NYPH

So what exactly is this New Year Plant Hunt thingie all about, I hear you ask. And why have I decided to participate in the 2022 hunt? To quote from the BSBI themselves

Since 2012, the Botanical Society of Britain & Ireland (BSBI) has run an annual hunt for plants in flower during a four-day period over New Year. Since the first New Year Plant Hunt (NYPH) was carried out by Tim Rich and Sarah Whild in Cardiff in 2012, the scheme has grown rapidly...

Indeed it has grown rapidly, last year saw the better part of two thousand folks wandering their local streets/woods/churchyards in search of plants in flower. This will be my first time participating in the hunt, so that's kind of exciting. And it will be a great beginning to my botanical odyssey, that's also kind of exciting. But most importantly, it will add the tiniest extra smidge of information for the data gathering people at BSBI headquarters. Every single record, even the nil returns, helps the BSBI gain a clearer insight into how our plants are responding to the continuing climate crisis. This will be the eleventh year that records have been gathered through the New Year Plant Hunt, so there's an entire decade's worth of data proving that the text books are already out of date and that many hundreds of plant species are capable of flowering in what ought to be the dead of winter. Bit scary when you think about it. 

I wondered if anybody had previously undertaken a New Year Plant Hunt here on Skye. Rather handily, the BSBI have produced this tool which allowed me to see that during 2021's hunt, Joanna popped into Portree on January 2nd and found flowering Gorse, Daisy, Nipplewort, Dandelion, Prickly Sow-thistle, Common Ragwort and Annual Meadow-grass. Meanwhile, Stephen Bungard over on Raasay was out and about on January 1st and managed to find flowering Bramble, Wavy Bittercress, Common Field Speedwell, Gorse, Glabrous Whitlowgrass, Groundsel, Meadow Buttercup, Annual Meadow-grass and Daisy. So the aim for my own Hunt is to beat Joanna's total of seven species and see if I can match, or even exceed, the heady heights of Stephen's nine species. Doubtless all you southerners are laughing your socks off at the thought of hoping to seeing a 'mere' nine species in flower. Just try it up here, that's all I have to say. 

I expect it will be too early for Snowdrops, but who knows what I'll find at the Portree site

You're allowed a maximum of three hours per hunt, which is more than enough time to wander the streets, but there's no limit on the number of hunts an individual can undertake, so long as the sites don't overlap and the hunts fall within the prescribed four days as set out by the BSBI. Obviously I'll be doing my first walk right here in Uig where I'm almost guaranteed to locate some Annual Meadow-grass, Daisy and Gorse in flower. Not sure what else I'll find, but it will be fun searching. Then I think I'll relocate down to the woods in Portree. There are various sheltered spots and large gardens nearby, I'm hopeful of finding one or two naturalised garden escapees flowering amongst the usual suspects. Giving it a bit of thought, I think I'm in with a chance of finding flowering Common Chickweed, Ivy-leaved Toadflax (I know just the wall...) and maybe a crocus somewhere. 

One thing I am very definitely not going to do is talk Ghostie into doing the NYPH. He'll be into double figures within a hundred feet of his door and will absolutely whup whatever meagre total I manage to achieve. 

And I simply can't have him gloating from the very first day of the year.

On your marks...

It is currently mid-December 2021; too early to begin my botanical odyssey through 2022, yet close enough that I'm positively champing at the bit to get going. As I type this, the Omicron variant is apparently 'surging' through the population and measures are being reintroduced to slow the spread. Here in Scotland, restrictions have never been eased to the extent that they were in England, and Skye is a long way removed from main population centres. Yet restrictions will undoubtedly be put in place and there's a fair chance my plans will be disrupted, though hopefully not through catching the damned thing!

Despite this, I am essentially optimistic that 2022 will be a fabulous year for me as I deep dive into plant identification. I'll be spending lots more time working through the keys, taking photos of critical features and developing a greater understanding of the morphology, taxonomy and requirements of our wild plants.

One thing that won't change very much between now and 1st January 2022 is my collection of botanical books. Just to brighten up a dull post, here's a few images of the books I currently own. Plenty of keys, plenty of field guides, plenty of garden plant books too. Unlike many botanists, I find garden escapees quite thrilling and I positively enjoy a bit of slum botany - hence the collection of garden reference titles. I'm hoping I've covered most options to help me identify any plant I encounter growing in the wild, although I'm not yet up to tackling the critical families such as Hieracium, Taraxacum, Rubus, Euphrasia and Ulmus (I do have the keys to some of those though!) The big books on the lowest shelf should have set me back hundreds of pounds, but by shopping around I paid less than 10% of the usual retail price. 

If anybody knows where I can purchase Vols 3 and 4 at a good price...

As you can see, it's a very narrow bookcase! But it was free and it holds books, so was a no brainer really. I have a well-thumbed copy of Stace 3 on another shelf and a truly battered earlier edition of the Collin's Wild Flower Guide that lives in my car. I also have this little gem of a book, gifted to me by a fellow Skye naturalist.

And finally, I have my roadmap! I may treat myself to the 2022 edition, seeing as I plan to hit the mainland on something of a regular basis this year. Not that too many new towns have popped up in The Highlands this last eighteen months...

I start 2022 here on Skye. I have it in mind to participate in the New Year Plant Hunt 2022 just to get things moving in the right direction (find plants, submit the records...) I've never attempted a NYPH before, but how better to begin my Botanical Odyssey than with a plant hunt? 

My next post will be about the plants themselves. Stay tuned and spread the word!