About BMS and our BMS Book
The Big Meadow Search is a UK, Ireland and Channel Island project developed by Carmarthenshire Meadows Group, to raise awareness and interest in grasslands and to record plant species.
The search period runs annually between 1st June and 31st August. Any species rich grassland types can be searched including meadows, field edges, woodland rides, churchyards, road verges, wild amenity grasslands and gardens. If you are searching private land, please make sure you have the landowner's permission.
Searching is easy to do and accessible to everyone as all it entails is making note of the location name, grid reference and date and then ambling along a grassland area and recording the species seen. No specialist equipment is required but a good plant identification guide, a hand lens and a camera are always helpful. If you return to the same area to undertake a search later in the season, you can just enter the additional species you find on the data submission page rather than entering everything.
If you own land, are interested in the project but are unable to undertake a search yourself, please get in touch as we might be able to arrange a volunteer to undertake a search and provide a species list.
The Big Meadow Search species list is derived from an amalgamation of the National Plant Monitoring Scheme (NPMS) lowland grassland indicator species plus additional meadow plant species of interest, but we welcome records of all plant species encountered during searches. On the data submission page of the website, the NPMS lowland grassland indicator species are denoted by the colour blue and the additional species of interest are shown in green.
Records submitted to BMS will be analysed to assess the number of participants, geographical coverage, types of grassland searched, range and numbers of plant species encountered and the proportions of positive and negative indicator species per search area. Once the BMS analysis is complete, the submitted records will be forwarded to the relevant local environment record centre (LERC) so that the collected data can be put to maximum use.
Ahead of the summer search period, we run a social media project to raise interest in plants and their associated species. There are frequent posts on X (@bigmeadowsearch) and Facebook (Big Meadow Search group) featuring plant identification tips and information on interactions with other species such as invertebrates, galls and fungi. We have produced a book, 'A guide to grassland indicator plants and some of their associated species', featuring the social media posts that refer to the Big Meadow Search plant species list. There are some example pages below and details on how to order are on the 'Resources' page.
Although there are already UK wide botanical schemes, we feel BMS offers something new and fills a gap. The National Plant Monitoring Scheme’s, NPMS and NPMS+ surveys for example, involve long term monitoring of specific 1km grid squares and are likely to attract established recorders with good botanical identification skills. BMS search sites are not allocated so searches can be self-selected and opportunistic. We have a three month time period for searches to be undertaken, this offers flexibility and the potential for individuals to search multiple sites. As a diverse variety of grassland areas are included, the BMS project offers a wide range of opportunities for people to get involved, ranging from inner city suburbs to wilderness areas with the potential to gather data from previously under recorded grassland areas. Searchers don’t need to feel pressured to identify everything they come across as records of common species and not just the rare are of interest and value.
Feedback from the inaugural BMS project in 2021 has demonstrated that participants derived increased appreciation and knowledge of local places and natural history and improved their identification skills whilst generating biological records. We now aim to build on this experience, increase the number of participants and extend the geographical coverage.
