Autumn/Winter 2019 from Feedback Gathered, Has Been the ‘Gaps on the Coming Into the Final Stages of Wildside, We Are in the Map’ Approach
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Northamptonshire Biodiversity Records Centre joining the Wildlife Trust Monitoring & Research team NBRC Newsletter 18 starting in January and still with us as our Aculeate Hymenoptera county recorder. A key tool of WILDside, Autumn/Winter 2019 from feedback gathered, has been the ‘gaps on the Coming into the final stages of WILDside, we are in the map’ approach. As part of his new role, Ryan will be process of writing up the final project evaluation and working with the Wildlife Trust Monitoring and reflecting on the tremendous boost to Research team for the next few months in Northamptonshire wildlife recording, as supported development of an updated interactive version of this through National Lottery Heritage Fund support, which and wider applications of the tool for conservation, as this project has delivered over the last two and a half well as supporting the wider work of this team. years. A huge number of records have been directly generated through the project, with support for recording across wider taxonomic and geographic coverage. The volunteer hours clocked up is a huge testimony to everyone involved! We will be sharing the project evaluation, so we, and others in the recording community, can learn from what has worked well. All The NBRC team at our first ever Northamptonshire project partners are looking at how we can continue to Biological Recorders Conference, delivered as support the successes. part of WILDside It has been busy as always over the summer with surveys, workshops and BioBlitz’. The whole team have supported summer surveying including two WILDside BioBlitz’ (with drone imagery gathered to support) and Wildlife Trust surveys; including the water for wildlife otter, mink, and water vole surveys, ecology group dormouse footprint surveys, rapid grassland surveys, and the Wider Countryside Local Wildlife Surveys. Notably, Nathalie has this year supported two Wildlife Trust BCN run training workshops on Stoneworts (led by Chris Carter) and Urban Plants (led by Brian Laney), following on from her WILDside run Aquatic Plants course last year. James led a Moth walk as part of a second year request from the Friends of Hunsbury for a Bat/Moth night event. Rachel was out with the drone for the ‘Farming for the Future’ project https://www.wildlifebcn.org/farming-future, to capture in HD video of the RSPB loaned Rotary Ditcher in action creating shallow channels and ditches for breeding and overwintering wading birds. Over this period, your records have been coming in via our website, from active recording groups and individuals, and in response to national and local surveys. James has been recently focussing on processing the most recently received datasets for 2019. The data will Feedback from recorders gathered in WILDside then be sent out to our County Recorders for Sadly, at the end of this month Ryan will be leaving us verification. Notable data sets received so far include as part of the record centre team, however he will be the latest Butterfly data David James, County Recorder for Butterflies and from County Caddis dataset from UK news will continue bi-annually and we thank you for Caddis Recording Scheme Organiser, Ian Wallace, who your continued interest and support. has ensured all local environmental record centres Rosalind Johnston, NBRC Centre Manager have access to the considerable body of data he has collected https://nbn.org.uk/ian-wallace-nbn- Keep our mailing list up to date. Email conference-2019/. Thanks to Brian Laney all of our Great Crested Newt records held have been verified by [email protected] with any changes to and are currently being imported into Recorder. He has your name and contact details, and let us know also been busily entering and updating plant data for your contact preferences and interests. the county in preparation of the upcoming BSBI Atlas due in 2020. https://bsbi.org/atlas-2020 Northamptonshire Biological Recorders, ALERC, NBN Conferences & Our database is closing in on a one-millionth record, National Record Centre News with records received over the year currently being processed for incorporation. Our most recent At the end of September we, summary of the data, up to April 2019, held is available with thanks to WILDside, in our 2018-19 Annual Report available on our website. hosted the first ever recorders Along with our three long-term volunteers, who work conference in the county with with Rachel in the digitisation of historic records, we over 40 wildlife enthusiast now have a new volunteer working with Nathalie on attendees. checks of LWS data to ensure accuracy. This summer, Talks by local Country 38 site surveys were completed and she is now making Recorders covered a start on processing ready for the spring panel Bryophytes, Diptera, Vascular meeting. Requested up-to-date data and GIS layers Plants, and Water Beetles. have now been provided for all our SLA partners for the External speakers from the year including our new partnership with South national Biological Records Centre and Back from the Northamptonshire District Council. It is momentous for Brink, Rockingham Forest project gave wider context to sound ecological decision making in the county that we citizen science and biological monitoring. It was now supply data to councils in both the North and wonderful meeting local naturalists, from those just South of Northamptonshire. We aim, through working getting involved to the many of you who are out and together, as part of our Steering Group, to ensure we actively surveying and recording regularly in the continually develop and meet local data need. county. Feedback gained from the event has been very To this aim, in developing our drone service, the team helpful to us in planning how we, as a record centre, are looking at developing mini-projects for use this can best support you. technology for conservation planning and monitoring. Following on from this, myself and Rachel attended the These case studies will be shared on our website. Our most recent ALERC conference where we heard case website has been developing, with thanks to Rachel studies of successful service partnerships from GiGL there is now an ‘all species’ map now on the website, and Transport for London, and our neighbour TVERC at 10k resolution, and we now have data download and the National Trust. The breakout sessions attended functionality. She has also recently completed the included discussion of Open Data and spatial mapping much-needed migration of the NBRC website to a new tools. ALERC is now starting the process of creating a webserver. This new webserver includes SSL security new strategic plan for 2020-2025. This will incorporate certification and greater support. We have agreement technological advances and changes to environmental to share details of recording support in the county on policy. The aim to help LERCs nationally to support the our website and additionally intend to launch a new targets set out in DEFRAs 25 year environmental plan ‘look out for survey’ in the new year. for Biodiversity Net Gain The annual licence for Lastly, a small note to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Recorder6 users was also launched for organisations this newsletter! As a way of keeping in touch more and individuals to support continued development and regularly and we aim to start a blog feature on our gain access to dictionary updates website and provide updates as they occur to your https://nbn.org.uk/tools-and-resources/recorder6/. inbox, to support this please ensure your contact info In November, we took the WILDside project to the NBN is up to date. The full summary of all the local recording conference to share the lessons learnt throughout the 2 project. The feedback mapping ‘gaps on the map’ recovery. Dr Roddy Fairley impressed on all the approach Ryan developed as part of the project in importance of data to create the urgent policy action particular struck a chord with others in the recording needed in light of the challenges we now face. community. For his personal recording contribution, Ryan was, for a second year running, nominated for terrestrial recorder of the year an incredible achievement and testament to his work with BWARS. This year the title went to Ian Wallace who it was fantastic to meet in person and thank for his very recent contribution to our database and to record centres nationally. We have a new chairman in place this year at the NBN, Neil Hodges, and the annual report is now live. With received Lottery Funding the trust are looking at building their organisational resilience and sustainability, as part of the afternoon discussions I joined a breakout session discussing the proposed monetisation of the NBN Atlas and how a national service could complement the existing work of Rosalind Johnston, NBRC Centre Manager local record centres in meeting large scale data need. Presentations and slides are now available online for this conference https://nbn.org.uk/news- events-publications/nbn-conference-2/nbn- conference-2019/nbn-conference-2019- presentations/ To everyone who took part, thank you! During the two days we heard from keen naturalists, This is my final update for you from the helm of the recording projects and scientists. Sir John Lawton WILDside project. It has been a great pleasure to work reflected on his life of studying the natural world. within the records centre to support biological Harriet Carty of Caring for God’s Acre described their recording in the county and learn myself more about recording project for burial grounds as shared in our Northamptonshire’s wildlife. The project has been a ‘surveys’ section. Dr Philip Stevens described the real collaboration between the records centre, the MammalWeb platform and the use of public wider Wildlife Trust, volunteer recorders and key participation for camera trap monitoring of mammals partners, so thank you to everyone that has got – a project we hope to support in Northamptonshire involved.