How does a botanist "get to work" (part one)?

The first in an occasional series.

The photograph on the right shows the 'transport of delight' that conveyed Lynne Farrell over the final few metres so she could reach her final tetrad on an islet off the coast of Mull.

And below, you can see the helicopter that Mick Crawley uses to get to St Kilda, where he botanises regularly. 

I did ask Mick for a shot of himself being dropped out of a helicopter, like Milk Tray Man (for under-40s, Milk Tray Man was the bloke in an old TV advert for chocolates). 

But Mick just smiled mysteriously, so we may never get to see the BSBI's answer to James Bond in action. Shame.

If you have a stereotype-shattering way of getting to your botanical work, please send me an image and I can share it. 

Canoes, horse and cart, light aircraft etc. all welcome. But no tanks, please - "Wild Things" covered that perfectly well on TV last year!

New BSBI Video. 

We were filmed for Birdfair TV on our award-winning stand, and the video is now available on YouTube here: 
 https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsxhHQYHSmcrggSiXj_rOAA
or you can download it here:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ysqsmdqgm7a7xdx/BSBI.mp4

Ian Denholm and Alyson Freeman at Birdfair 2013.

The video features Ian Denholm talking about how BSBI can help you get involved in plant recording in your area. Alyson Freeman, Co-ordinator of the new North Northants group, talks about why she records plants with BSBI. And the video also features an annoying woman wittering on about outreach... that would be me then.

No wonder Ian and Alyson are smiling in this photo - Best Stand Award, new BSBI video...
  

Lynne's 332nd and final tetrad!

Lynne in her final tetrad, on the islet of Maisgeir, 
to which  she sailed on the MV Birthe Marie 
(seen in background).   

Lynne Farrell, VC Recorder for the Isle of Mull, has just completed a mammoth task. She has spent the past 17 years recording the plants of Mull for a new Flora and tells me that, on 7th August, she surveyed her 332nd and final tetrad! 

If you are new to recording: tetrads are 2km x 2km grid squares: our 1962 Atlas divided Britain and Ireland up into squares so that we could record the plants in each square on a regular basis and so map the distributions of all our wild plants over time. There are 332 tetrads on Mull and its associated islands. 

Lynne tells me "I had always thought that the last tetrad would probably be on some remote hillside, but it proved to be three remote islets, visited by sailing boat on 7th August. I was accompanied by several of my stalwart recorders and several locals who had also helped in one way or another." She added that during her 17 years recording on Mull, she had "come to know both the landscape and the locals, and I am addicted to the area."

Lynne and Team Farrell on the MV Birthe Marie
Image: John Clare

I hear that Lynne and Team Farrell celebrated by "breaking open the champagne bottles somewhere off Staffa and we were escorted back to Fionnophort harbour by a pod of bottle-nosed dolphins. They must have known it was a special occasion!"

The last Flora of Mull was by Jermy and Crabbe, published in 1978, and we'll be using it for a while longer, as Lynne's Flora won't be published for a few years yet - surveying and field recording form Step One in the long process towards publication, and Lynne says: "Now begins the serious business of writing up the new Flora". But first, she is preparing a fuller account of how she completed that final tetrad for the next issue of BSBI News, due out in September. 

Best Stand Award 2013 (Conservation) for BSBI at Birdfair. 

Friends and colleagues have been contacting the BSBI Birdfair Team all day at publicity@bsbi.org.uk to offer their congratulations on our award. Best Stand in the Conservation category! Certificate pictured to right, just in case you thought I'd made it up, and here is my favourite image (below) of RSPB's Martin Davies and his daughter Mervy handing over the award to Rachel, one of our Birdfair volunteers, without whose sterling work we would not have won this award.

One of today's nicest congratulations emails was from Abbi at RSPB, who very kindly said "We were lucky enough to be awarded second place after you and it was great to hear who'd beaten us!" Thanks Abbi - pipping RSPB to an award isn't something that happens very often and we are still pinching ourselves!

We tried - apparently successfully! - to convey something of the enthusiasm which all BSBI members share for botany to hundreds of people who love wildflowers but don't (yet) consider themselves botanists. And I hope we managed the dispel the strange misconception that you need a PhD and a microscope before you can really start to enjoy identifying the wild plants of Britain and Ireland.

We were able to explain how BSBI can help you see some really nice plants, learn to identify them and then turn your observations into valuable scientific records which help inform policy-makers, academics and researchers. And we reminded people that BSBI holds one of the largest biological recording databases in the world, and most of the records in that database were collected by BSBI volunteers - all wildflower enthusiasts just like you and me!

So here is my Photo of the Year so far:  

Martin Davies (RSPB) and his daughter Mervy handing over the award for Best Stand (Conservation)
 to Rachel Benskin, one of our BSBI volunteers at Birdfair 2013.
Image: L. Marsh

BSBI wins award at Birdfair!

We had barely arrived at the BSBI stand this morning, when Martyn Davies from RSPB (co-organisers of Birdfair) dropped by to tell us that BSBI had won the Best Stand Award (Conservation) 2013. We had some photos taken, as the award was being presented. Very pleased :-)

Today's Birdfair Team is me, Rachel and Jane Houldsworth, BSBI's new Head of Operations. 

But we have vistors to talk to right now - more news to follow!

Day Two at Birdfair. 

Ian Denholm and Abbi Jinks at Birdfair 2013
Image: L. Marsh

Another busy day at Birdfair, culminating in Ian Denholm's lecture on 'Botany for Birders'. 

Our new President spent the day on the BSBI stand, chatting to people about orchids (he is one of our Orchid Referees), rare birds he's seen (he has a serious world lifelist) and BSBI's role in 21st Century botany. People dropped by to catch up with him, like Abbi Jinks, Events Project Manager for RSPB - we met her at the State of Nature launch at the Natural History Museum in May - and Ian Bennallick, county recorder for East Cornwall. 

And folks who were new to BSBI were delighted at the chance to ask our President - if I joined your society, what could BSBI do for me? So...

Improve your ID skills at a local group field meeting.
Image: R. Parry 

We showed them our website, asked where they lived and clicked on the interactive map on the homepage, which showed them who to contact locally about BSBI activity in their area. They could see if any of BSBI's national field meetings were taking place nearby (especially those marked as particularly suitable for beginners) or any local groups active in their area, or who to talk to about local training and recording opportunities. We showed them BSBI News and New Journal of Botany, and told them about membership discounts on botany books, like the series of BSBI Handbooks. We invited them to our Annual Exhibition Meeting at the Natural History Museum in London on Saturday 23rd November. We told them about BSBI's national support network of county recorders and national referees like Ian and the two Beginners' Referees (you can start using them as soon as you join the society). And as if that wasn't enough, we told them about the important scientific work their subscription would be supporting. 

Ian Denholm lecturing at Birdfair 2013.

Ian went straight from the stand to the Birdwatching Centre, to deliver his lecture on 'Botany for Birders'. It played to a packed house, was extremely funny, and you should be able to download the PPT as a free pdf from our website next week, although it can't capture the humour of the live performance!

A few people also took us up on our offer and challenged us with photos of mystery plants (which Ian was able to name successfully), and even more used the ID keys we'd brought along to help them name a plant they'd spotted previously. Maybe we'll get some unidentifiable plants tomorrow, before Birdfair closes at 5.30.

Many thanks to Ian, Alyson and Rachel for volunteering today and promoting BSBI so well.

Day One at Birdfair. 

BSBI volunteers at Birdfair 16/8/2013
From left: Jodey and Rachel; John & Monika Walton
 (VCRs for Warks) and BSBI President Ian Denholm.  

The first day of Birdfair and the phrase "Birders' Glastonbury" was heard this morning when the rain got quite heavy, but the reserve paths coped really well. And then the sun came out again, and the people flooded in and our feet hardly touched the ground all day. Here's the Birdfair Team for Day One, catching up during a rare quiet moment.

Lots of people wanted to talk to us about wildflowers to attract pollinators and butterflies into the garden, and about ways of managing wildflower meadows. We were able to help and then point out how useful it is to be able to ID plants, to find out what grows where and how that's changing over time, and about our co-operation with other recorders like CEH. It was great to have Jodey Peyton from CEH on the stand today, to offer a field ecologist's perspective and to explain how CEH are supporting biological recording.



The BSBI volunteers spoke to people from all over Britain (and a few from Europe) who are interested in botany - some already doing it and some wishing they could get started in ID or pick up old skills again. 

A few were botany graduates - from those distant days of botany degrees in British universities - who haven't picked up a lens for decades and wouldn't mind a bit of support to get started again.

We logged 148 conversations throughout the day with people who came to the BSBI stand, but for a while it was so busy that we simply didn't have time to log anything. Lots of people stopped to look at the banner and then walked into the stand because the flowers looked so attractive and they wanted to know more about BSBI and what we do. So we told them! 

We also managed to catch up with some old friends like Sue Southway of Plantlife (above) and Nigel Brown (right), who has made Treborth Botanic Gardens such an inspirational place to visit, and who really deserves a Blogpost of his own - so check here next week.