Hoverfly Sightings W/C 1st January 2026
Happy New Year everyone!
Hope all my readers have had a great festive season and are ready for new adventures to begin in 2026.
It’s not been the best of weeks for me with regards getting out and about nature spotting, but I did get out New Years Day and the 2nd of January, so below are the listings for those days. As I sit here and write up my sightings, I am looking out on a dusting of snow which always makes a lovely, picturesque setting, until someone goes out and puts boot prints all over the place.
Click below to find out what I found.
New Year’s Day Plant Hunt: BNats field event around Barnsley.
Objective: To count and log all wild and naturalised in-flower species seen on New Year’s Day. 'In flower' means that the flower must be fully open, with reproductive parts showing - not just in bud.
This is now becoming a yearly event for this naturalist group. Being unable to go last year due to adverse weather, I wanted to make a concerted effect to get there this year. This is a citizen science project run by the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland (BSBI) aimed at understanding how rising temperatures are influencing the flowering seasons of plants.
The BSBI have a criteria for collating records which include identification, a picture and grid references for all plants, grasses, and flowering trees. This information once loaded up onto the website adds to the wider project but also allows groups to compare rankings.
For more details click below.
https://bsbi.org/take-part/activities/new-year-plant-hunt
Being a northern town, I was a little sceptical we would find anything to be honest, so I had a dummy run on Christmas Day around my local patch, which is a little out of the town centre so less urban but still plenty of brownfield sites to explore.
Christmas sightings click below.
https://hoverflyspotter.blogspot.com/2025/12/christmas-in-bloom-sightings-2025.html
The BNats took the same route around Barnsley as they did the previous year, although shortened slightly. This cut down the mileage for our urban flower walk to approximately 2.4 miles, taking approximately 3hrs. It took us 30mins to get out of the car park. Last year the group got 28 species, so the question was could we beat this record?
I must confess I am no botanist so was glad for group leader Mitch who does know a thing or two about plants, and if we were to see more than 7 flowers (my Christmas Day excursion) or beat last year’s record of 28, then more eyes were needed. In the end we started with 10 people although not sure they all got to the end of the walk.
Findings: Wow, we managed to find 42 flowering species, which is amazing.
Of those 42 species 11 were new to me, these included Petty Spurge, Hawkweed Oxtongue, White Melilot, Shaggy Soldier and the grass Water Bent.
At the time of writing this blog a total of 648 species of flowers have been seen across the country. 53% of the flowers were classified as late flowering whereas it was 52% in 2025 and 23% of the flowers were early, previously 26% in 2025. The rest were as expected or classified as ‘Early or Late’ or ‘Not Determined.’ Interestingly only 58% of the flowers seen were native, 38% being non-native, not sure what the other 4% were.
Of course, early or late flowering, some of these flowers should not be out at this time of the year. Is this a result of climate change and/or urban areas being warmer, providing a micro-climate for their seasons to be prolonged or start prematurely? No doubt a topic to discuss in more depth another time.
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| Flowers: Narrow Leaved Ragwort, Petty Spurge, Cow Parsley & Herb Robert |
The top 5 species nationally were in order: Daisy, Dandelion, Groundsel, Annual Meadowgrass and Gorse. Same as 2025 except White-Dead Nettle replaced Gorse.
For those wondering where the grouped ranked we finished 90th out of 1803 so in the top 5%, last year they were top 15%. Not that we were being competitive or anything, lol.
How did your group do?
Comment below if you took part, would love to know what your group was called.
Other Species found:
That was an extra 30 species making the total 72 species for the day. Some nice little additions but nothing significant and only one invertebrate the 7-spotted ladybird.
I was so glad I was able to contribute to this citizen science project. Would love to do it again and especially with a group, as more eyes can cover more ground.
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| Bryophytes: Hedgehog moss, Cypress Leaved Plait moss & Wall Screw Moss |
Old Moor 2nd Jan
I thought I would start my birding list for the year and visit a local nature reserve RSPB Old Moor.
From the sightings listed for the site the previous day I was hopeful of spotting Green Winged Teal, Green Sandpiper, Bearded Tit and Caspian Gull but unfortunately, I got none. That’s birding for you it cannot all be Book-a-Bird.com! The list in the end was a start for the year and with only 1hr birding I thought it was a decent list.
This added another 19 birds for the year making the total birds seen in two days 33 species. I am positive some keener birdwatchers will be into their 100 plus by the end of day two so much to catch up.
I probably need to think about what I hope to achieve with regards recording species in 2026. I hope to see a fair number of hoverflies, but bryophytes and other invertebrates always trump birds and flowers, but I will keep searching and learning with the hope of generating a decent list by year end.
What would you consider a reasonable target to achieve? Comment below if you have a number.
Please visit again soon for an update of progress made over the coming weeks and months.
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