Finn Harrigan is the latest recruit to the Revivel Committee.
Finn is a local biology graduate fascinated by wildlife and keen to conserve and improve local biodiversity. He is excited to share with you the “Wildlife in Baldock and Beyond” Facebook group that he has created to try and engage more people with wildlife, ecology and conservation and he invites everyone to join. The group is all about sharing local wildlife sightings, local events and causes, and creating awareness of the biodiversity crisis. As part of the biodiversity crisis, chalk stream conservation is an important battle worth winning. Finn believes this group can help Revivels cause by engaging more people with the fascinating field of natural history and how the biodiversity crisis impacts us all.
We welcome and encourage everyone to share their knowledge and enthusiasm for chalk streams and the natural world to help create an informative, encouraging and inclusive space for those in Baldock looking to learn about biodiversity and conservation. We’re still in the early stages of populating the group, so please help in spreading the word if you can and posting anything you think others may find interesting! Together, we can make a real difference in protecting and enhancing our local biodiversity.
Wildlife recording is an important way the public can learn about and help protect rapidly disappearing wildlife in the UK. Becoming much more accessible in recent years through the use of technology, anyone can record the wildlife they find to generate vital data used to study nature and the responses of ecosystems to environmental change. Wildlife recording is crucial in helping inform conservation practices and gathering data to study the biodiversity crisis, but just as importantly it is a tool that has great potential in helping us reconnect with nature. Wildlife recording can help us get outside to reap the mental and physical benefits of being outdoors while learning about the impacts we have on the environment by slowing us down and opening our eyes to the incredible, but disappearing, diversity of local flora and fauna on our isles.
A queen Tree Bumblebee (Bombus hypnorum) searches for a suitable cavity to establish a nest. Data from citizen science projects have helped document the rapid spread of this species across Europe and into the UK when it was first recorded in 2001. Since then, records have been able to show its rapid spread across nearly all counties in
England and Wales as well as its more recent arrival to Scotland, where colder temperatures limit its spread. This queens above-ground cavity nesting habit has helped facilitate the species rapid spread with queens readily using urban areas for nesting such as bird boxes or loft spaces, in the absence of trees.
At its core, a wildlife record consists of what you saw, when you saw it, where you saw it and who saw it.
For a long time, these were completed on paper and then sent to wildlife recording groups often with a specimen that could be used to confirm if identification was correct. Now with specialised apps designed for recording wildlife, it is easy for anyone to take a photo of a species and record it. If you are a beginner to wildlife recording, I strongly suggest you sign up to iNaturalist (https://www.inaturalist.org/) and download the app to your phone so you can upload records very easily on the go.
iNaturalist is the most user-friendly of the wildlife recording apps. Especially useful for beginners, photos of findings can be identified using the apps A.I feature that compares your photos to those on its vast database of records, as well as using the geographical location of the record, to give its best suggestions on what species you are looking at. This feature has its limitations as many groups of species are more or less identical to the naked eye, but provided you have taken a good enough photo of your organism from multiple angles, the feature can be used to confidently point you in at least the right direction of what taxonomic group (group of related organisms – such as great apes which our species is a part of) it belongs to which is extremely helpful for beginners trying to navigate the awe-inspiring diversity of life on Earth! Uploaded records can then be viewed by other enthusiast wildlife recorders on the app who can verify what species have been recorded. When enough fellow iNaturalist users concur with what the species is, the record is now given the research grade status, helping to reduce the degree of error in data collected by citizen scientists used in scientific studies.
Broad-leaved Everlasting-pea (Lathyrus latifolius), a non-native species that is now naturalised in the UK following its escape from gardens. Records from citizen scientists have been able to show how widespread this species has become especially in the south and midlands of England. You may have seen these large showy pea flowers in the summer at Weston Hills or near Clothall Common.
Once you have downloaded iNaturalist and made an account, practice recording some wildlife in your garden and then give it a go in Ivel Springs. Ivel Springs, like most local nature reserves, is very under- recorded and would benefit greatly from having more data on the biodiversity present. Without adequate data diversity of species on site, we cannot assess how biodiversity on site is changing over time in response to environmental change, such as aquafer over abstraction and climate change. Having sufficient data of wildlife in Ivel Springs and the upper reaches of the River Ivel prior to its restoration for use as a baseline is critical for quantifying the impact restoration would have on the surrounding ecology. Any species you record in Ivel Springs using iNaturalist will be collated under the Ivel Springs Wildlife Recording Project (https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/wildlife-at-ivel-springs).
If you visit the project page, you can see what wildlife has been found (or rather lack thereof currently!) in the reserve and compete with other local citizen scientists on the project leaderboard for who has the most records and for which groups. There is a high potential for interesting findings considering how few records there are for the area! Even if you don’t know what you’ve found, be sure to take a photo and upload the record so it is
shared on the project. Being curious enough to start opening your eyes to the huge diversity of life around you is the first and most important step! In addition, to share your findings, learn more about other local wildlife in Baldock, and find out how else you can support biodiversity in Baldock, be sure to join the Wildlife in Baldock and beyond Facebook group (https://www.facebook.com/groups/wildlifeinbaldockandbeyond). The group was recently created to help raise awareness of the biodiversity crisis, create a stronger community around these issues and manifest positive change for the state of wildlife, especially in face of future growth in the area that could threaten further habitat loss. It would be great to create as active of a group as possible and show that these issues that affect us all are important to the community.
A Red Admiral Butterfly (Vanessa atalanta) feeding on a Butterfly bush (Buddleia davidii). Citizen science data on butterflies have been helpful in revealing distribution changes of species across the UK with climate change, and Butterfly Conservation’s Big Butterfly Count recording project has generated great (but worrying) data each year on how populations are fairing.
On a larger scale, the records you produce as a wildlife recorder are vital for researchers exploring all kinds of ecological questions across species groups. With the huge gap between how much land there is and the scarcity of expert recorders and surveyors, citizen science is a powerful tool in collecting more data across the UK while engaging more of the public with the biodiversity crisis. Here are just a few examples of how important wildlife recording is for understanding changing ecology and in turn, conserving biodiversity:
– With enough records, we can infer species range and study how they are responding to factors like climate change. This is important if we are to strategically protect existing populations of at-risk species, and more crucially restore and create habitats in optimal locations.
– Surveying and recording specific species groups that are sensitive to environmental change are especially useful for monitoring the condition of habitats, like chalk rivers, that can be vulnerable to pollution. Species of riverfly and other aquatic invertebrate groups are extremely sensitive to pollution and are utilised in river monitoring initiatives by The Riverfly Partnership to help evaluate the health of rivers and detect pollution events so appropriate action then be taken. In the future, Riverfly Monitoring of the upper reaches of the River Ivel will hopefully be feasible when flow is restored. For now, we are looking into monitoring riverfly populations further downstream where flow is better as to monitor pollution events that could be happening in the upper reaches of the river currently. Please do reach out if you would be interested in helping us monitor the river as there will likely be riverfly training in the near future.
– Phenology (the timing of species lifecycles – such as flowering in plants, the emergence of insect species in spring and the migration of birds) is another important component to understanding ecosystems under climate change and can be studied using the time of wildlife records collected by citizen scientists.
– Giant hogweed is a very agressive invasive species that can spread rapidly down river sides through their bouyand seeds that wash up onto banks before germinating into a behemoth plant that can outcompete our native riverside plants and can welts on your skin if you are exposed to the sap. This species has now been recorded at Ivel Springs and hopefully will be removed soon to prevent further rapid spread. As a wildlife recorder, you can help monitor our green spaces and help identify any invasive species that have arrived early on – early detection is crucial in managing invasive species!
– Wildlife records are also used to direct and inform conservation and development planning. This is especially important to consider for Baldock with the currently proposed developments. By recording wildlife in Baldock and showing greater care and appreciation for our wild spaces, we have a greater chance of ensuring that they won’t be destroyed.
A Four-spotted Chaser (Libellula quadrimaculata) perched on an emergent reed stem. Similar to butterflies, dragonfly recording by citizen scientists has helped to reveal drastic and worrying changes in species distributions. Some species of dragonflies (as well as butterflies and other insects) are migratory, travelling from Europe and even as far as sub-Saharan Africa. Citizen science records of migratory species help provide important ecological information such as their migratory timings. With the UK climate becoming warmer and wetter across winters, we may find occasional migratory species able to colonise and establish populations here, such changes will likely be discovered by citizen scientist wildlife recorders first. It could be you!
If you’ve caught the wildlife recording bug and want to challenge yourself by furthering your knowledge and understanding of ecology and evolution, there are boundless free resources on the web but physical field guides used for identification are very useful while in the field if you are interested in any specific groups but don’t let that be a limitation to your learning. Learning from other enthusiasts I find is the best way of learning so I recommend joining other Facebook wildlife groups and checking out the Hertfordshire Natural History Society which leads fortnightly walks to explore wildlife in our county.
All in all, get outside, see what you can find and don’t forget to share your findings to the WIBAB group!
Alternatively, if you not on Facebook and want to be involved in the project ,or would like to know more about the group please email Finn on wildlifeinbaldock.ab@gmail.