Scilly Isles plant-hunting trip?

[davidbr]

Hi all,

As part of my 2009 plant photography schedule (I'm aiming to get photos of as many UK species as I possibly can; I've managed 817 in half-a-season this year and will be disappointed if I don't at least double that in 2009), a trip to the Scilly Isles looks to be essential to track down a whole host of unusual Mediterranean & southern hemisphere aliens that are extremely rare, if found at all, on the mainland.

Apparently, though, at that time of year (peak season appears to be the first two weeks in June), it's far easier to sort out boat transfers between islands etc if you're in a group. I'm a new-ish member on this site so don't really know anybody, but I've read a few threads about other successful "meets" that have been arranged and I was wondering whether anyone else fancied it? There seem to be quite a few keen plant-hunters on here?

There's no need to decide anything now, or even for two or three months, but I'd be interested in seeing whether it would be a viable option to fix up a WaB group holiday (it'd probably take a week to cover all necessary islands) to the Scillies?

[leifus]

I would love to but I doubt I'll be able to because of school but I'm sure others will be very interested!

[leifus]

and you must have been reeeaaally busy! 817?! that's amazing and your hoping to DOUBLE THAT?! wow good luck!

[davidbr]

Originally Posted by leifus

and you must have been reeeaaally busy! 817?! that's amazing and your hoping to DOUBLE THAT?! wow good luck!

Most of those, actually - in fact I'd say 90% of them - have been found within 30 miles of the town/city I'm currently based in (Bristol). So I'd say that anyone who lived in an urban area could probably do the same (far better, actually, if we were talking about London )

My main interest had always previously been birding, and I'd think nothing of travelling a few hundred miles just to tick some rarity that, given the throng gathered around it, you'd barely see more than a glimpse of. I especially remember one occasion when, whilst on holiday in Malia, I heard news of a Short-toed Treecreeper (a common West European bird that's incredibly & depressingly similar to the UK's regular woodland one) - and, because I'd missed three before, I flew back and swapped thirty-degree sunshine for a day at Dungeness (hardly scenic, for all its' wildlife potential) and a bird I saw for all of five seconds! As my then-girlfriend, who I'd been on holiday with, pointed out, I'd actually just flown across almost the entire world range of Short-toed Treecreeper, just to see one lost bird I couldn't honestly say I'd have identified myself anyway!

But, back in March, a surgeon's knife meant there was no way I was going to be able to get up to my usual tricks. I needed to do something in the wild, and I'd always casually kept a sort-of-list of the plants I'd come across whilst birding. So I got myself a digital camera, and that's where it started from really. I've been out a lot, in terms of hours/days "in the field", but actually travelled very little - apart from one June week in mid-Wales, which was for a family holiday so I wasn't exactly free, the furthest I've been is Brean, Berrow and Sand Point about 30 miles S.W. of Bristol

[leifus]

Originally Posted by davidbr

Most of those, actually - in fact I'd say 90% of them - have been found within 30 miles of the town/city I'm currently based in (Bristol). So I'd say that anyone who lived in an urban area could probably do the same (far better, actually, if we were talking about London )

My main interest had always previously been birding, and I'd think nothing of travelling a few hundred miles just to tick some rarity that, given the throng gathered around it, you'd barely see more than a glimpse of. I especially remember one occasion when, whilst on holiday in Malia, I heard news of a Short-toed Treecreeper (a common West European bird that's incredibly & depressingly similar to the UK's regular woodland one) - and, because I'd missed three before, I flew back and swapped thirty-degree sunshine for a day at Dungeness (hardly scenic, for all its' wildlife potential) and a bird I saw for all of five seconds! As my then-girlfriend, who I'd been on holiday with, pointed out, I'd actually just flown across almost the entire world range of Short-toed Treecreeper, just to see one lost bird I couldn't honestly say I'd have identified myself anyway!

But, back in March, a surgeon's knife meant there was no way I was going to be able to get up to my usual tricks. I needed to do something in the wild, and I'd always casually kept a sort-of-list of the plants I'd come across whilst birding. So I got myself a digital camera, and that's where it started from really. I've been out a lot, in terms of hours/days "in the field", but actually travelled very little - apart from one June week in mid-Wales, which was for a family holiday so I wasn't exactly free, the furthest I've been is Brean, Berrow and Sand Point about 30 miles S.W. of Bristol

that's absolutely incredible! As I say I haven't got out nearly as much as I would have liked but Ive been in yorkshire, Wales, Isle of Wight, Dorset coast, New Forest, Chalk downland of Wiltshire......... and I have half your amount!

[davidbr]

I'm guessing, though, that a lot of yours are probably natives, no doubt with a few rarities thrown in?

My local haunts, the Avon Gorge, Brean, the Mendips etc, do hold more than their fair share of specialities (White Rock-rose, Round-headed Leek, the Gorge whitebeams etc), but the reality of spending a lot of time in urban-ish environments is that a good half of my list is made up of alien species. Officially that doesn't matter, at least all the "professional" botanists I've come across (who've written books/run websites etc) seem to count them all equal, but of course it's a different kind of experience hunting for orchids on the Wiltshire downs to trying to dodge being mown down by mountain bikes whilst photographing Lesser Caucasian-stonecrop at the edge of a cyclepath

Personally I find it fascinating; I had no idea how many species of plants, and what a variety, you could find in places councils just dismiss as brown-field, valueless strips of wasteland. I'd never have imagined that in the "mess" that's grown up around my local railway station, for example, I'd be able to photograph Hairy Canary-clover, Rose Campion & Japanese Honeysuckle on one 50-yard stretch of bank, then walk the same distance in the other direction and find Argentine Vervain, all four of the Conyza fleabanes and Flowering Currant in another patch that hardly anyone looks twice at.

There are plants from pretty much every corner of the globe growing as naturally as they can in one tiny little part of suburban England - and yet all the locals do is moan that it attracts rats...

[leifus]

wow that's amazing and true! Yes, almost all of mine are native so that explains it!

[ceterach]

Originally Posted by davidbr

and yet all the locals do is moan that it attracts rats...

Speaking for myself, I'm more likely to groan and hope the alien won't become a problem.

All the best

[davidbr]

Originally Posted by ceterach

Speaking for myself, I'm more likely to groan and hope the alien won't become a problem.

All the best

I've always been of the opinion that the "alien threat" from species like this is over-rated - 99 times out of 100, I'd see them as a welcome addition to what's sadly a pretty impoverished native flora and fauna. And unless someone shows me some unequivocal scientific proof that the newcomer's doing real harm, I'll always be on the side of not meddling further by trying to undo the "mistake".

After all no species, plant or animal, can survive and thrive unless it can find a niche for itself - yes there are a few, like the infamous Grey Squirrel, that do it by bullying a weaker native out of the way, but most often it's just that they're filling a gap that's ripe for exploitation. Plants, especially, have been introduced to Britain since the Stone Age - sure, for a while they might spread aggressively, but they'll always be reined in by nature's own equilibrium eventually. Any that destroys the habitat it depends on is doomed to fail.

Various New World waterweeds were let loose in canals in the 19th century and doom-mongers predicted the end for aquatic life as they knew it - these days Canadian & Nuttall's Waterweed are at best locally frequent and the rest real rarities. I'd be willing to stake hard cash that, if I'm still here in 50 years time, exactly the same could be said for Japanese Knotweed, Parrot's-feather, Floating Pennywort and all the current bogey species

Nah, live and let live, that's my attitude. I cancelled my RSPB membership because of their support for a Government cull on Ruddy Ducks (and told a stunned Labour MP exactly why he couldn't "rely on my vote - I bet it was a NuLabour whinge he hadn't heard too often...) and I'd just love to see the politician brave enough to publicly campaign for doing the same to the Ring-necked Parakeet...

[davidbr]

Originally Posted by leifus

wow that's amazing and true! Yes, almost all of mine are native so that explains it!

Which means you've got plenty still to add

So have I, actually - the number of introduced plants recorded in Britain is pretty daunting, there are something like 7,000 on the BSBI database and listed in Clement & Foster's "Alien Plants of the British Isles" (though a lot haven't been seen since the Second World War, by the looks of it...)

Although I'm sure there are plenty to be found in any town or city, London definitely seems the place to go - the abandoned cemeteries around Kew, and the various canal-sides, look to be full of all kinds of weird & wonderful stuff! That's one of my aims for next year, anyway - between London, Scilly and a couple of others I've already inked in, like Warley Place, I reckon it won't be too hard to add another good few hundred species besides all the natives I've yet to come across