Wildflowers Count - The Results

In a previous post I wrote about the survey pack that you'll be sent if you sign up to do a survey in Plantlife's Wildflowers Count survey.

Public Path Diversion notice.

As I mentioned last time, due to construction work on my assigned square I moved one square along. This square is part of a farm and has rights of way through it. Something I'd never seen before is that rights of ways can change. The photo to the left shows the old rights of way A-B and the new rights of way C-B, which is actually a nicer path as the fields has hedges on one side and is flanked by a river on the other side.

There are three surveys to choose from; the path, the square plot, and the linear plot. During the surveying we decided to do them all there and then, as the weather was nice.

Our company for the afternoon.

We started with the path survey, a 1km by 2 metre walk. The habitat for this area was hedgerow, river, and with a majority - grassland. I decided to keep to the 99 wild flowers in the survey and we found: Bramble, Common Nettle, Cow Parsley, Creeping Buttercup, and Hawthorn.

About half way along the path survey was a large area between fields that provided up with a 5x5 metre square that was around 15 metres away from the path. This was all grassland habitat and was less than a third Cow Parsley and between a third and two thirds Creeping Buttercup. The remainder was grass, but understandably this wasn't on the species list as it's difficult to ID for beginners such as myself.

One of the many interested cows surveying us
that afternoon!

We had a good long rest in-between surveys and some very interested cows came to keep us company.

Eventually we moved on and completed the linear survey, a 1 x 20 metre plot, close to where we started and next to the river. This was 100% grassland in which we noted less than a third each for Common Nettle, Creeping Buttercup, and also Meadow Buttercup - which wasn't present in the other surveys.

A few days later I emailed the results to Sue Southway and received an acknowledgement that we'd completed the form ok. As the survey is done any time between April Fool's and 30 September, we may well revisit our site and see if we can add a few more species to the list.

Survey location. Crown Copyright 2013.

In conclusion, I think this survey is a really great way to get involved with plants. It can be done at any time of your choosing between April and September and with anyone you like. I had a great time going the survey with my fianée, Lucy, who was the record keeper, while I was wandering around looking for the plants with the help of the book.
Even if only one of the three surveys is chosen, important records are being added. One of the things that surprised me was how few species we had in our square! We found species in addition to the 99 species being looked for and in future I may become a super-surveyor as I become more competent and, indeed, confident with my identification skills.

This can be helped by the identiplant course that can be studied at a reduced rate for active surveyors. It may be something I look into nearer to the next enrolment date in January 2014!

So, my advice is: Get involved! It's a great way to spend an afternoon,