New Year Plant Hunt 2025: Day One

Today was the first day of the BSBI's fourteenth New Year Plant Hunt, when thousands of botanists head out to look for wild or naturalised plants in bloom in midwinter. 

It was wonderful to see plant records flooding in to our Results website, from plant hunters across Britain and Ireland: whether 48 species recorded on Jersey (the southernmost Hunt of the day) or seven records from chillier Inverness (the northernmost). 

As always, coastal areas yielded more species: 81 species, including a gorgeous Fumitory (below left) recorded by the Norfolk Flora Group Team B, currently in pole position on the list of Longest Lists. Down in Mevagissey in Cornwall, where the weather was mild enough for some plant-hunters to wear shorts, Dan Ryan's team notched up 78 species, including some "arable lovelies" against a stunning backdrop (on right) and he declared the Hunt "the best event of the year". 

Over in Portaferry, Co. Down, Graham Day - who has recently published an excellent new Rare Plant Register - recorded 57 species, including Stinking Chamomile, Tall Ramping-Fumitory, Shrub Ragwort and the invasive Three-cornered Leek. The Glamorgan Botany Group, which included star botanist Tim Rich, one of the two original New Year Plant Hunters (along with the fabulous Sarah Whild) and winner of our latest 'Outstanding Contribution to British & Irish Botany' award, found 72 species in bloom, including five different Speedwells as well as three delicious edible plants  - Fennel, Wild Parsnip and Wild Carrot - which we assume they weren't tempted to forage! 

But the Hunt isn't just about long lists: the aim is to find out how our plants are responding to a rapidly changing climate, with warmer wetter autumns and winters, and fewer frosts, so the reports from people who went out hunting and found very few, or no species at all, in bloom are just as important. The BSBI recording app makes it possible to report 'nil records' and that all goes into the mix when we come to analyse the results.

The Hunt is also about blowing the cobwebs away and enjoying getting out in nature, whether with friends and family, on your own (to enjoy some quiet time after a busy Christmas), or on one of an ever-growing selection of Group Hunts. Kim, Shane and their team enjoyed a "happy morning" on their group hunt in Portrane, County Dublin and found 18 species in flower including Tree Mallow. BSBI Chief Exec Julia Hanmer had a "fantastic" day out hunting with the Gloucester Naturalists and Tristan Norton in Southampton reported a "satisfying" New Year Plant Hunt, with 34 species in bloom including Musk Stork's-bill and Sea Mayweed. 

There were fewer wild plants in bloom inland, although the recent mild weather meant that many of us following the same routes as on previous years' Hunts recorded way more species this year. Markus and Nadine were out in Brightwell, near Wallingford, and logged a "personal best" of 52 species including Great Mullein, Sweet Violet and Stone Parsley. The South Lincs. Flora Group notched up 48 species in Sleaford, including Grey Willow and Upright Hedge-parsley. 

I was out in inner city Leicester (on left) with our urban botany group, where 15 of us recorded 43 species in bloom, twice as many as we found following the same route last year after heavy frost. We also came across a patch of verge with three species in bloom which haven't been recorded at all in that 1km x 1km square for eight years: Field Madder, Eastern Rocket and Yellow Oat-grass. 

There's nothing like a New Year Plant Hunt for teaching you something new about an area you thought you knew like the back of your hand! Thanks also to three members of Leicester Friends of the Earth (above right) who joined us to compare notes on how our wild plants are responding to climate change and the knock-on effects this might have for all our wildlife. BSBI is not a campaigning organisation but our data underpin nature conservation projects across Britain and Ireland. 

Many people reported seeing the 'usual suspects' in bloom - the species that feature in the list of most frequently-recorded plants and which we put onto our spotter sheets, to help people just getting started with plant-spotting. 

There were a few surprises though - for example, both Debbie & Dave Alston in East Sussex and James Common in Newcastle found Viper's Bugloss (on right) in flower. We'd usually see that flowering in late summer and presumably it hadn't been knocked back by frost so it just kept right on blooming. In previous years we've found that more than half the species recorded during the Hunt are in this category, late bloomers who have kept going - will that be the case again this time? We won't know for sure until all the data are in. 

The first day of the Hunt is usually fairly quiet but even so, by the end of the day, we had received more than 4,200 records from 300 Hunts, and 368 species had been recorded in total. What will tomorrow bring? Watch this space!