2024 County Report for Staffordshire

John Hawksford & Helen Ball

VC39 (Staffordshire) Vice County Report for 2024.

    12,226 new monad records for the current year were made. They were entered into MapMate or the BSBI Recording app and, hence, the BSBI Distribution database.

    The situation differed, however, with respect to other years in that a very large quantity of data was received other than from BSBI Members, namely the general public via Indicia & iNaturalist. This totalled more than 38,000 records, covering several years and mostly of very common taxa. It was examined and much was convincing enough to be copied into the Ddb. Relatively little pertained to the current year so that the contribution to the 12,226 was only 4,554.

    Sadly, more of our previously active members bcame too frail and/or experienced transport problems that seriously hampered their fieldwork. The number of individuals supplying field data fell to 23, of whom 9 recorded from several, or many different monads.
Details of the most significant records are given in “Plant Records 2024” on the Staffordshire page of the BSBI website. These include Torilis arvensis (Spreading Hedge-parsley), with the last previous sighting prior to 1901 and a rare report of Trifolium resupinatum (Reversed Clover).
Several plant identification and other queries received in e-mails and the post have all been answered promptly and in detail.
Records have been exchanged with the work of Staffordshire Wildlife Trust's Survey Teams and Staffordshire Ecological Record.