New Year Plant Hunt

Every year, the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland (BSBI) holds its New Year Plant Hunt, its aim being to record plant species in bloom during the first four days of January. 1,811 people took part in the 2021 Hunt and recorded 710 species in bloom https://bsbi.org/wp-content/uploads/dlm_uploads/BSBI-New-Year-Plant-Hunt-2021-FINAL.pdf

I have always had an interest in plants and in June 2019 I achieved Level 4 of the BSBI's Field Identification Skills Certificate which basically means my plant ID skills are good but not outstanding, with plenty of room for improvement. In the last couple of years, I have endeavoured to devote more time to plants including participating in my first New Year Plant Hunt in 2021. With it being exceptionally mild in late December (the warmest New Year's Eve since records began) I was keen to take part for a second time and see if we could beat the 20 species we recorded around Southwick (where we live) in 2021.


Unfortunately the weather wasn't conducive to botanising today with heavy squally showers during our plant hunt and a stiff south-westerly gusting up to 40 mph. As well as having to contend with the weather, I find it difficult to switch off from birds and walk along looking at my feet rather than up in the air but nevertheless we still managed to beat last year's total by one:


Nothing especially noteworthy though Silver Ragwort is an interesting one. An introduced species, it was first recorded at Cowfold in 1825 according to Flora of Sussex and is now widely scattered along the coast and locally common, as on shingle at Shoreham.

Silver Ragwort

Four more birds for my local year list this afternoon, the pick of the bunch being a single Purple Sandpiper along the east arm of Shoreham Harbour. 






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