There is still time to take part in this year’s Big Meadow Search, which will be accepting new records until the end of this month.  If you haven’t yet tried it, why not have a go?  You don’t have to be an expert botanist to do a BMS, although you will certainly become more familiar with grassland plants if you do.

Any type of species-rich grassland can be searched; meadows, churchyards, road verges, woodland rides, footpaths, amenity grassland, etc etc etc.  Obviously, if it’s not public access land, make sure to get permission!

To take part:

• Select your grassland
• Record the location name, grid reference and date
• Walk around and write down all the plants you can see
• If you aren’t sure on a species, take photographs from multiple angles of the flower heads, basal and stem leaves, upper and lower leaf surface, leaf base shape and either post on our social media or email to us and we will try and help to identify the species
• But even if you only record plants you know and leave out those you’re unsure of, we will still be adding new records – and common familiar species are important and are often under-recorded
• Enter your results on our website  https://www.bigmeadowsearch.co.uk/submit  or you can email them to bigmeadowsearch@gmail.com Once we have finished our BMS analysis, we will send the records to your local environmental record centre (LERC)

If you’d like to know more about BMS you can find an informative talk about it on our YouTube channel given by Laura Moss, who created the scheme and has developed it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5FrRvBsttI&t=238s

You can find lots more information on the BMS website https://www.bigmeadowsearch.co.uk/, or on our Facebook page Big Meadow Search, or on our Twitter account @bigmeadowsearch, or you can get in touch via email on bigmeadowsearch@gmail.com.  Have a go, you’ll enjoy it and it will provide useful data!