In January, as the dark days of winter grow longer and brighter, the arrival of one particular email from BBOWT fills me with cheer. It is the annual invitation from Colin Williams, BBOWT Ecology Officer, to participate once again in their Reserves Surveying Programme.

I can look forward to summer days out and about in BBOWT reserves with a team of other surveyors whom I've got to know quite well, getting a close look at what's going on at ground level.

As I have some familiarity with plant and butterfly identification those are the two areas I sign up for each year but surveyors are needed in other fields too.

It's a great opportunity to get a detailed look at reserves you might already know quite well, and to visit reserves you haven't seen before.

One of the things I do is habitat condition assessments, which happen on every reserve every three years in rotation. The surveying team work together to record a number of quadrats across the area concerned.

We are given a record sheet with a not-too-long list of features, including key plant species to record, so we don't need to be able to identify absolutely everything. (That's just as well because my grasses id skills are woefully poor.)

We usually have to get down on our hands and knees, give each square metre quadrat a thorough search and record the presence or absence of each flowering plant.

You quickly get to recognise the species expected in that habitat and it's a fantastic way to get more familiar with those plants.

The data collected are used to monitor changes in the reserves over periods of years so that the right decisions can be made about their management.

Without a large team of volunteers to do this ground work, far less data could be gathered and reserve management would be less well-targeted.

Surveys generally take a few hours and there's a break for lunch, during which Colin usually shares the results of previous surveys with us, so we get an idea of whether or not the habitat is improving.

Having done this for 10 years now, I'm glad to know that I have contributed to two or three of the prior surveys and there's a great sense of continuity, as well as the feeling of time well spent in wonderful surroundings.

One lasting memory for me is eating a packed lunch on a warm day at Hartslock, with a beautiful view of the Thames, surrounded by orchids and other delightful chalk grassland flowers. That day I met a plant new to me, the interestingly-named and hemi-parasitic bastard toadflax. Always learning!

Later in the summer certain hedgerows, important habitats for black and brown hairstreak butterflies, are surveyed to ensure the hedges are in good condition and have both tall blackthorn and shorter blackthorn suckers for each hairstreak species to lay its eggs on.

I also do a weekly butterfly transect during the warmer months. This is a more solitary type of survey and I relish the solitude and peace of walking the set transect path through each reserve, as well as noting the seasonal and year-on-year changes to the butterfly populations.

Sometimes walkers will ask what I'm doing and they are usually surprised and interested to hear that this happens and appreciate its importance.

I have also been involved in monitoring the health of the juniper populations at Bacombe Hill and Grangelands reserves. Juniper populations in the south of England are dwindling, mainly due to changes of land use, so this recording is vital.

When I mention the Reserves Surveying Programme to other volunteers, many have not heard of it, yet anyone with skills in wildlife identification, from basic to expert, can get involved.

You needn't feel that your identification skills are not up to scratch as there are opportunities to team up with more knowledgeable surveyors if you feel less confident.

So, if you think you'd like to join our happy team, do email Colin Williams at colinwilliams@bbowt.org.uk. The more the merrier!

Sylvia O'Brien, BBOWT volunteer surveyor

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