And so it Begins

With just half a day left before 2026 begins, this is probably as good a time as any to explain the whole idea behind this new blog. 

I like to finish each year by setting myself a natural history challenge for the forthcoming year, something to keep me on my toes and to encourage myself to gain new identification skills. Sometimes I will choose a specific group to study for a season; past years have seen me tackle, for example, spiders, flies and plants, the result being I come away with a better working knowledge of those groups than when I started. I've tackled lots of groups over the years (some with more enthusiasm than others) but, birds aside, the two I've felt the largest affinity with are probably the Diptera and Vascular Plants. 

This year I have decided to continue expanding into the world of Vascular Plants, but I'm specifically targeting several of the groups where I am less confident in my identification abilities. I feel that grasses, for the most part at least, are still a step too far. So my personal challenge for 2026 is to properly knuckle down and learn my ferns, sedges and rushes plus their allies. I intend to key, key and then key some more, to make drawings, take note of the habitats and plant communities, the associated invertebrate or fungal species, to take lots of critical photographs, undertake microscopy, dedicate whole blogposts to individual species and really begin to finally establish a deeper understanding of these ecologically important plants. 

To keep myself eternally enthused throughout this quest, I've compiled a Checklist of all 268 species to be found in Britain. I'll be genuinely surprised if I encounter more than about half of the species on the list but, end of the day, its purpose is to goad me along on what will doubtless be an oft-tricksome journey into a world of wet and damp places and of the plants that grow there. 

Ostrich Fern frond ready to unfurl into a thing of beauty. Much like this blog then...

I would be very happy indeed to have you accompany me on this quest of discovery throughout the year. Or, as is more likely perhaps, this quest of mud, mayhem and mishaps. Happy New Year everybody, now let's go find some plants to ID...