Cofnod conference

Cofnod [Welsh for a record] is our North Wales Local Records Centre and yesterday was their annual conference - a chance to meet recorders and ecologists from all over North Wales.

There was a good presence from BSBI - four Vice-county Recorders, including our retiring President Ian Bonner, who gave an interesting presentation on his progress towards an Anglesey [VC52] flora

Ian Bonner at Abermenai
Photo:Louise Marsh

I took a poster highlighting our local groups in North Wales [where every county now has one]

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BSBI Local Groups

There are ongoing programmes of field trips in all the North Wales vice-counties.

Everyone is welcome and it is a brilliant opportunity for people interested in plants to enjoy days in the field with like-minded people and there is always something new to learn!

 Anglesey VC52 [http://bsbi.org.uk/anglesey.html]

Anglesey Flora Group 

A field day with the Anglesey Flora Group

Merioneth VC48 [http://bsbi.org.uk/merioneth.html]

Merioneth Naturalists/Grwp Natur Meirionydd

Dolgoch Falls near Tywyn, Merioneth

Caernarfon Group VC49

Teaching in the field

FlintshireRecording VC51

Orchis mascula, Early Purple Orchid,

in Flintshire woods

Denbighshire Group VC50

Epipactis phyllanthes, Green-flowered Helleborine,
at Alyn Waters

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Nigel Brown, who is Curator-Manager of Treborth Botanic Gardens,  University of Bangor, gave a fascinating talk on his twenty years of moth-trapping in the Gardens. One of his students talked about his work on the polymorphism of the Common Marbled Carpet  as an example of the practical uses of this work  - apart from the continuing fascination of these beautiful insects.

Other talks on mammal, amphibian, reptile and bird recording showed the versatility of Cofnod's database and online recording facility. The Amphibian & Reptile Conservation Trust, in particular, uses Cofnod to produce distributional maps of their records.  The BSBI of course deals with a larger number of species/ records than many of the groups currently using Cofnod's database and we have our own Distributional Database, but I left the conference feeling confident that for botanists in North Wales anyway, the promise of reaching an overall data exchange agreement is now closer than before.

Cofnod put on another great day of networking and learning about the work of recorders of other biological groups.  Their hospitality was as ever generous and I am sure I am not alone in taking away ideas of ongoing benefit.  Many thanks to Roy Tapping, Aisling Carrick and all the team, for such a good show.

Roses Workshop, September 2013

Kate Thorne offered this taxonomic training workshop as part of the BSBI's annual programme of meetings, which are advertised nationally. Members of the Society are welcome to attend free and learn from experts at events which would be quite expensive if they were run, for example, by the Field Studies Council.  They are designed for all levels from complete beginners to vice-county recorders [VCRs]. Last year a Sedge training day was attended by at least four VCRs - and another meeting was designed to introduce people newly interested in botany to the important plant families of Britain

Ruth's amazing rose-petal cake

Kate has cultivated a wide variety of native roses in her garden in rural Shropshire, so we were able to see them "in captivity" before we went out to see them in the wild.  The day started with a small group - just six of us - enjoying coffee in Kate's farmhouse kitchen before we got down to work, with remarkable cakes, appropriately decorated by the creative Ruth Dawes with rose-petal icing!

Roses in Kate's garden

We looked at the three main groups within the genus, Dog Roses, Downy Roses and Sweet Briars, and the characters which separated them.  That made it so much easier to assign them to species - as with many groups it is much easier to recognise the salient features when all the extraneous information is cut away. We also discussed the complex, asymmetric reproduction of hybrid roses, in which the seed parent often provides four-fifths of the genetic material as against the pollen parent.

Rose identification near the Stiperstones

After seeing the plants in Kate's garden we went off to look at roses in several sites near the Stiperstones, and were able to practise our new knowledge. It's such a lovely area - and we finished off with a splendid tea at The Bog Visitor Centre, which is "a gas-lit Victorian former school..... one of the few remaining buildings of a lost lead and barytes-mining village." Their cakes were superb and sent us home well-satisfied with our day.

Thanks to Ruth Dawes for all the photographs

BSBI Recorders' Conference, September 2013

Always a highlight, this year's conference was no exception although the format was different, with all activities taking place at The Gateway in Shrewsbury, and members staying at the Premier Inn instead of the more familiar Field Studies Centre at Preston Montford.

The weekend kicked off after an excellent buffet lunch on Friday afternoon with some challenging talks  - needless to say Fred Rumsey and Richard Bateman both had their audience on the edge of their seats, talking about alien ferns and orchid taxonomy respectively. How delightful to hear of the slimming down of Dactylorhiza classification! Jim McIntosh's talk about his stay on Tristan da Cunha was taxing in a different way with his pictures of botanising in a barren and very difficult terrain. Saturday's talks included Pete Stroh's on a new Red List for England and a delightful vignette by Irina Belyaeva-Chamberlain, our new Salix referee, on her father's interest in Salix cultivars and how it aroused her own deep knowledge of the genus.

Workshops occupied the rest of the weekend's indoor activities:  The Big Database was on the menu at most sessions.  This is constantly evolving so it is well worth updating one's understanding of the immense versatility of its search functions.  Other interests included Conifers by Matt Parratt, Charophytes by Richard Lansdown and Roses with Roger Maskew.  As ever, there was so much enjoyable fare to absorb, what with all the networking to be done as well!

A gaggle of botanists watching Tim Rich at the river's edge

Sunday morning was fine and dry as we walked the "Loop" within the River Severn, trying to update records for the town. I concur with Arthur Chater's remark: "I specially enjoyed the Sunday morning walk with so many good botanists discussing identifications of such a wide range of species." I always feel sad at the end of this event so it was good to have Wendy's company on my way home.

Traeth Glaslyn - 26th August

What a lovely day we had - a super reserve and we were blessed by the lovely late summer sunshine that has been such a wonderful compensation for the long, cold spring. We were 9 members, one of the best turn-outs ever: I've circulated a list of 165 species seen, and there may be more to come. I think we all felt there is more work to be done in this area, and I look forward to a return visit at a different time of year.

Looking north up the Glaslyn river
to the new bridge carrying the A487 

We spent a long time recording in the lane which runs alongside the reserve and perhaps we would have been wiser to get up to the alder carr at the north end first.  However we made an excellent list with several names new to the hectad mostly due to more accurate recording such as Pastinaca sativa subsp sylvestris, Wild Parsnip rather than P. sativa s.l. Non-native species included Red Oak, Quercus rubra, Wilson's Honeysuckle, Lonicera nitida and Lodgepole Pine, Pinus contorta, all planted, and a lot of a Michaelmas Daisy, Aster, provisionally determined as  Aster x salignus.

Persicaria minor

On the reserve itself we were pleased to find Eleocharis parvula, Dwarf Spike-rush, washed up in the more brackish pans to the south of the area we covered, and Persicaria minor, quite abundant in many parts of the northern, less-brackish areas.  It was a pity to see so much Crassula helmsii but it seemed to be well-confined to a single area, perhaps where the vegetation was less robust and it could get established.We got a very good list of other freshwater and brackish marsh plants but didn't find the iconic plant of the reserve, the Welsh Mudwort, Limosella australis. Better luck next time!

Osprey watching at lunchtime

We had an idyllic picnic in the sun on the water's edge and the crowning delight was seeing an Osprey flying over the river.  We set off home in ones and twos, well-contented with the day's work.

June and July - the summer slipping away

Anglesey -
Burial chamber near Moelfre

Anglesey - Cors Bodeilio:
Dactylorhiza purpurella

I have deserted Merioneth and this blog almost since Caerdeon.  Only a few days after that was over [when it was still very cold and un-summery] we had the BSBI AGM in Anglesey.




Almost straight afterwards we were in France. Martin and Clare Rand arranged a wonderful botanical holiday just south of Auxerre, in the heart of the Burgundy country. We stayed in a gite big enough to take 11 of us in comfort, with a large kitchen and open-plan living room, and its own pool. This was more than welcome as the weather got quite hot as the week went on. 

Botanising in Burgundy

The botanical highlights were numerous including some wonderful arable weeds such as Althaea hirsuta, Hairy Mallow and Legousia speculum-veneris, Venus’ Looking-glass.  Perhaps the highlight for me among so much superb habitat was the woodland with many orchids including my favourite Cephalanthera rubra, Red Helleborine. Martin’s knowledge of the region and its botanical riches was amazing and enabled him to take us straight to the best areas for plants and grand scenery.

Le Buget at nightfall

From there John and I went to Le Buget, our “second home” in Auvergne and we managed some good botany though the grain harvest was well under way and many of the arable weeds had disappeared.  Most of the time, though we were working hard in the garden, clearing heaps of building rubble and laying doorsteps etc.

I returned to Llandrillo in early July to find a garden looking more like a jungle and clearing it really has had to be a priority, but we had a good field meeting during the last week of July.

Yellow Water-lilies [Nuphar lutea] on Llyn Cwmorthin

Five members of Merioneth Nats met in Tan–y-Grisiau, among the extensive slate workings of Ffestiniog.  We recorded in two tetrads, notching up 170 records altogether including updating Andy Jones’ 1997 record of Floating Water-plantain, Luronium natans.  

Luronium natans
Photo: chinch gryniewicz

Coincidentally, I was sent another record of the same special plant with a superb photograph which I’ve put in here – it gives a much better idea of it at its best than my poor efforts!

Disused quarry house by Llyn Cwmorthin

Disused house below Llyn Cwmorthin 

The walk up to Llyn Cwmorthin was interesting with many relics of former quarrying times and showing the uplands so much more populated than nowadays.  What a bleak life it must have been - but giving rise to so much of the richness of Welsh society and culture.

Cwm Bychan [Nantmor]

Juniperus communis subsp nana

For Merioneth Nats’ field meeting in June only three of us came and we worked hard for our sparse 80 records. We were pleased with the number of young Dwarf Juniper, Juniperus communis subsp. nana plants we saw, though.

Guy - a botanist photographer at work!

The weather was still unseasonably cold and there was not as much to see as we had hoped.   It was tough country and Guy and Lucia's cheerfulness kept spirits up as we had to struggle through shoulder-high bracken and rhododendron back to the car park at the end of the day.  

May 2013 Dolgoch Falls

Such a long time since I wrote this blog and memories of the May Merioneth Nats meeting at Dolgoch Falls have receded into the past.  I do want to record it however and upload a few photos, as it was such a good day.  Heather made it seem very easy by letting me have contact details of local landowners, particularly of Eileen Jones, Clerk to the Community Council who manages the woodlands at Dolgoch Falls. She made us feel very welcome and the farm owners did too.  I have been as remiss about sending our records to Eileen as I have about keeping up this blog!

We met at the Dolgoch Falls Hotel and were detained for ages by the garden escapes and other exotics around the lower reaches.  Wending our way upwards we were now alongside the falls and now diverting round mine adits and impassable stretches of the river. There was a fine suite of woodland plants but nothing amazing.  Not only did we not find the hybrid Hymenophyllum [H x scopulorum] which Heather had hoped for but we only found one of its parents, H. wilsonii, Wilson’s Filmy-fern.  The other parent, H. tonbrigense, Tunbridge Filmy-fern, has perhaps not been seen here since 1960.

A mine adit

Reading Fred Rumsey's paper on H.x scopulorum

                                                                  

The stream at Nant y Mynach

Eventually we made our way out onto the open hillside and thence down towards the road again.  After we scoured the roadside for [mostly reseeded] plants, Heather left us to take the direct route home, while we tracked back to the cars alongside a slow-flowing stream, where we collected some nice aquatic records.  These included a putative Callitriche obtusangula, which was later determined by Richard Lansdown as ‘only’ C. stagnalis, and a Water Crowfoot which has still to be determined but may be Ranunculus penicillatus.  I had intended to return to get more material, but I fear that this will now have to wait for another year!