Recording wildlife is fun! All sightings are important, from butterflies to hedgehogs, to the birds and the bees, so get out and about note down what you see!

Getting out and about in the countryside recording what plants and animals you find is not only helping to conserve the natural environment, it helps you to stay fit and healthy too.

How do I fit in?

You can contribute to the record centre or to nature conservation in a number of ways:

• send in wildlife sightings to your Local Environmental Records Centre;

• help out and volunteer to add records into our database;

• attend and support local events – each year several wildlife days and bioblitz events take place in North and East Yorkshire.

Supporting Recorders

“Since its formation in 1999, NEYEDC has supported naturalists, volunteers and organisations to ensure that the best possible data is available to inform all decisions that affect conservation, land management and sustainable development in North and East Yorkshire.”

Our support includes:

• technical aspects of data collection;

• providing help to those wishing to share data, making the process as efficient as possible;

• staging public events to promote wildlife recording.

The easiest way to record wildlife is to note down a few simple details of what was seen, where, when and by who, e.g. Kingfisher; River Ouse in York by the Lendal Bridge; Harry Smith; 15 October 2018. Be as precise as possible - ideally use a map or the GPS on your phone to provide a grid reference for your sighting. You could also provide a photograph and any other relevant information such as the type of record (e.g. sighting, nest, footprint), number seen, sex, life-stage and habitat observed in.

What makes a biological record?

A valid biological record must contain:

• Who – Provide your full name and contact details; this helps us distinguish between different recorders and enables us to check details if necessary.

• What – Give the scientific name if you can, or the standard common name. If you don’t know the exact species please be as specific as possible about what you’ve seen, for example ‘pipistrelle bat’, ‘newt’, ‘Rosa species’.

• Where – Give a grid reference and a location name if you can, otherwise please provide a good description to help us assign an accurate grid reference.

• When – Ideally give an exact date, however the month and year, or a date range, is sufficient.

We recommend the ‘Darwin Guide to Recording Wildlife’ as a good starting point to learn the basics of the subject.

The Field Studies Council’s Guidance Note on Biological Recording is also an excellent resource, which you can download here.

The easiest way to make sure that your wildlife sightings are used in local decision-making is to submit your records direct to us. This is best done in Excel as we can check them quickly and import directly into our database.

We have a downloadable template spreadsheet, NEYEDC Species Recording Form, which is ideal for submitting records to us at records@neyedc.co.uk.  This email address can also be used for identification enquiries, attaching photographs if you have any.

As well as sending your records direct to us at NEYEDC there are lots of websites that offer online recording.  Many of these, including the Yorkshire Naturalists’ Union, use the iRecord platform.

Rather than using lots of different online recording platforms, you can create an account and submit your wildlife sightings direct to iRecord, either online or via the iRecord mobile phone app.  Both the website and app make it easy to enter records and upload photos to support your observations and the website version allows easy navigation of other records too.  The records are also checked and verified by local or national experts.

Records of amphibians or reptiles (herpetofauna) can also be added to The Record Pool, a collaboration between Amphibian and Reptile Conservation (ARC) and Amphibian and Reptile Groups of the UK (ARG UK).  The Record Pool is an online recording tool, which collects information on reptiles and amphibians in the UK and makes it available, locally and nationally, for conservation purposes.  As with iRecord these records are checked by experts and are made available to all Local Environmental Records Centres.

Need help identifying something?

If you see something new or you are just not sure what it is, it is really useful to take a couple of photographs. The internet is a great resource for identification, with many national wildlife organisations offering guidance on how to identify species.  The Open University based iSpot is an easy to use website where you can share your wildlife photographs for others to decide (and hopefully agree!) what your unknown species is.  Alternatively contact us at records@neyedc.co.uk and we may be able to pass your query onto a local expert.

The best way to learn about biological recording and identifying wildlife is to join other like-minded people.  NEYEDC works closely with the Yorkshire Naturalists’ Union (YNU) who run a number of interesting events, field meetings and an annual spring conference.  Dates and details can be found on the Events and Field Meetings page of the YNU website.

NEYEDC often attend public events like bioblitzes or wildlife days, working in partnership with site managers or friends-of groups to help them study their area in detail.  In recent years we have run the data collation side of bioblitz events at sites including York Museum Gardens, Brimham Rocks in Nidderdale AONB, Pearson Park in Hull and Grosmont in the North York Moors National Park.  In 2018 we were involved in two events on consecutive days as part of Chris Packham’s UK BioBlitz 2018: Nature Reserves Are Not Enough campaign, at Nosterfield Nature Reserve and Filey Bird Observatory.  These two sites ranked second and third for their species tallies out of all 50 sites involved nationally, only just falling behind Kings Dyke Nature Reserve in Cambridgeshire!

We also hold an annual Data Providers’ Forum which gives our recorders and supporters the opportunity to come and talk to us, hear talks from other recorders and take part in discussion and workshops.  This helps our recorders to gain expertise in areas they otherwise might not come across, such as online recording applications and computer mapping of species records. The group is open to anyone who records wildlife and we are always keen to hear from new people; click the button below to sign-up to the mailing list.