NOTTINGHAMSHIRE WILDLIFE TRUST

RECORDING WILDLIFE

Do you take trips into the Nottinghamshire Countryside?

Do you visit Trust Reserves?

Do you have a good knowledge of a particular aspect of our flora & fauna?

Would you like to help the County's wildlife by becoming a voluntary recorder?

In the last few years it has become increasingly apparent that we do not know enough about our wildlife and this scenario is, I feel, not just local. In order to manage our land effectively we need to know what is on it, and by monitoring the wildlife we are able to, not only determine management prescriptions, but can see if the management has been effective. With a limited number of staff and a growing estate it is clear we need to increase the number of volunteer recorders in Nottinghamshire to provide us with the necessary data. Information is required on all species groups and for areas outside our reserves as well as on the reserves themselves.

Useful records are already being received from our members but I would like to encourage more of you to help. I feel one of the problems has been that people do not know where to send their records and so I am prepared to act as a first point of contact for all records of any species groups from plants to birds.

Any records I receive are already, as a matter of course, passed on to the relevant County Recorder and are shared with the Biological Records Centre at Wollaton Hall. Data from outside our reserves is also important as, whilst we may not keep it on our database, we are able to call it in from the BRC or county recorder when a major planning issue for an area of land rears its head.

There are two basic forms of data gathering – casual records made on site visits and actual species surveys. An example of the former would be a log of all the species of butterfly (with numbers) seen whilst on a walk around Bunny Wood. The second scenario could be visiting a site on a defined number of visits to record the number of singing birds (common bird census) or undertaking a survey of all the potential harvest mouse sites in South Notts.

Those members who attended the South Notts Group AGM will be aware of the need for records as I gave an illustrated talk on the subject following the AGM business. I have a supply of information sheets for any member who wishes to take up recording and will happily help anyone get started on a fascinating and useful aspect of wildlife observation.

If you have a real expertise in a particular species group I would love to hear from you. From time to time we need to organise a specific survey of a site for a particular group of species. You will read in "Nottinghamshire Wildlife" how valuable last years butterfly surveys of Dukes Wood, Besthorpe, Spalford and Daneshill were.

John Ellis - Records & Information Officer