2020 News
Irish Grasslands Project - New Annex I Resources
As part of this year's Irish Grasslands Project we've created a series of free, downloadable resources around the four Annex I grassland habitats which occur in Ireland: Lowland Hay Meadows, Molinia Meadows, Nardus Uplands, and Semi-Natural Calcareous Grasslands. Each resource contains a description of the habitat, list of characteristic species, and descriptions and photos of 10 plant species which are good indicators for the habitat. We hope these will be useful to anyone interested in learning more about these important habitats or wanting to be able to identify them.
If you'd like the check them out, visit the Irish Grasslands Project webpage. On the page you'll also find videos and slides from the five webinars we ran this summer.
Big thanks to the authors, everyone who provided images, Maria Long for support and feedback, and NPWS and CEDaR for funding the project!
Irish Autumn Meeting and AGM
The 2020 Autumn meeting and AGM took place on Saturday, 26 September. It was held fully online for the first time but was still a great event. The meeting included a welcome from BSBI President Lynne Farrell and four talks covering Atlas 2020 and other botanical projects, followed by the formal AGM and election of new members to the Committee for Ireland.
Details about the meeting, including videos of the talks, are available on Autumn Meeting and AGM webpage.
Irish Grasslands Project
This summer we launched a brand new project to highlight the importance of Irish semi-natural grasslands and help to improve the identification skills needed to record them. We held 5 free online training courses covering introductory grass identification, vegetative grass identification, sedge identification, and an introduction to Annex I grassland habitats. We also are developing downloadable resources around Annex I grassland indicator species, and running Irish Grass of the Week on social media. For all the details, please check out the Irish Grasslands Project webpage. Thanks to NPWS and CEDaR for supporting this project. Photo by Maria Long.
Botanical Recording for Beginners
We know a lot of people love wildflowers, but not everyone chooses to record and share what they find. In August, we held a webinar as part of the Ellen Hutchins Festival all about how to get started with botanical recording, and why you should! The session covered why we record plants, what information is needed for a useful plant record, and ways you can contribute your records to national databases. We used recording in Ireland as an example, but the main concepts are transferable to other locations.
If you'd like to have a look, links to a recording of the webinar and the slides (with lots of useful links!) are available on Irish Resources page.
Covid-19
The BSBI trustees have been keeping an eye on the current coronavirus situation and have recently updated their guidance. All field meetings for 2020 have now been cancelled. Even if we are not able to get together, there are still lots of ways to keep involved and build your botanical skills. Check out our Activities 2020 page for links to projects, publications, training resources, and more.
Irish Vice-county Annual Reports
Every year we ask County Recorders to summarise the most interesting and exciting news over the past year. Here are the 2019 Irish Annual Reports. Take a look - it's a great read!
State of Nature Report
You can also download the summary for northern Ireland and read commentary on the situation in Ireland from John Faulkner, BSBI County Recorder for Armagh and BSBI President 2015-2017.
Irish Autumn Meeting and AGM
Photo from West Galway field trip this summer (John Conaghan)
The Irish Autumn Meeting and AGM was held on 21 September at the National Botanic Gardens, Dublin with a great range of talks:
First, Robert Northridge reported on the amazing recording efforts that have been made over the last few years, such that nearly all hectads in Ireland now have over 200 species recorded and have reached at least 60% re-record rate since the year 2000.
John Conaghan reported on the big four-day field meeting in West Galway in July. 39 people participated, collecting around 5400 records from 12 hectads in this beautiful part of the country. Rory Hodd treated us to photos of exciting plants, stunning landscapes, and wet botanists as he told us about the Rough Crew's exploits for the year. Aoife Delaney gave an interesting talk on the new, fast-growing Leitrim Local group with their busy schedule (13 trips!) and efforts to engage with the local community.
Paul Green gave a summary of the hugely successful Aquatic Plant Project - 34 days, 94 participants, 91 hectads and hundreds and important records from this under-recorded group of plants. This was followed by two talks by Nick Stewart. The first highlighted the importance of Ireland's unique and varied aquatic habitats, while the second focused on some particularly tricky elements of aquatic plant identification. All-in-all it was a very interesting, informative, and enjoyable event. I hope anyone who missed it will be able to join us next year!
New Year Plant Hunt 2018-9
The first flowers in the Hunt were found by Ger Scollard in Tralee, Co. Kerry. He submitted his list just after midnight on Day One! More here.
The New Year Plant Hunt Twitter feed is here and an analysis of all Results across Britain and Ireland will be published here on 29th January.
