Eyelash fungus c. Jacob Jackson
The Garden BioBlitz took place across the UK on the weekend of 1st and 2nd June. Following promotion on BBC Springwatch, the BioBlitz exceeded all expectations, generating over 23,000 records of over 2,400 taxa in a single weekend!
A Garden BioBlitz Information Centre was set up on iRecord, so that Blitzers could view the latest photos, find out which recorders and species were ‘trending’, keep an eye on the running total of species and records, and see a breakdown of results by Vice County on an interactive map. All the latest details can be found there now.
So, the BioBlitz definitely appears to have been a success, but what did particpants think about the event and how did they find iRecord? We asked four BioBlitzers to tell us their stories and we are really pleased to share this with you.
Patrick Roper
I decided to do the Garden BioBlitz in my Sedlescombe, East Sussex garden after my son, Charles Roper (IT officer at the Sussex Biodiversity Record Centre), asked me. He was keen for Sussex to show up on the map and suspected I could help.
I had previously looked briefly at iRecord, but have been using various versions of RECORDER for years and before that and various spreadsheet systems back in the ‘90s and even before that strange things called ‘notebooks’ (still indispensible I find). However, the day before the GBB started I had a go at iRecord and found it easy to use. I always enjoy being able to get records into a database quickly and easily, but I haven’t yet quite worked out how to make a simple list of what I recorded in a particular place. I was also surprised to be informed that many of my records, particularly of vascular plants, would have to be verified by an expert. But I suppose this would have happened even if I had been an Emeritus Professor of Botany at a famous university.
I have, like many others, been recording in my garden for about 40 years so looking at what is about on a particular weekend means partly simply checking existing lists and seeing if the species in question is still there. Many species take time to determine accurately, even if one is familiar with them, so that slows the process of trying to get a long list. Often I will spend the better part of a day trying to work out the identity of a species, and getting a positive answer is, inevitably, more satisfying that just simply confirming that what has already been recorded is still there.
An interesting example of this is that a couple of days before the GBB I discovered the hoverfly Cheilosia caerulescens attacking some of our garden houseleek species (Sempervivum) as the larvae mine the leaves. This is a species only known in Britain since 2008 and, as far as I know, new to East Sussex, our vice-county. Trouble is it hasn’t yet got into the RECORDER dictionary and therefore could not be entered into iRecord. I have since, however, recorded Sempervivum tectorum and added a note about the hoverfly. iRecord says the Sempervivum record is ‘awaiting verification’ (by whom, or when? I have been collecting and studying this genus for over 60 years – maybe ‘corroboration’ would be a better term if more than one opinion is thought necessary on a belt and braces basis.)
I did not actually find anything I had not seen before over the GBB weekend, but that was partly because I was working quite fast. If I had put up a Malaise trap I could probably have caught hundreds of insect species, but it would have taken me months, or even years, to work out what they all were. Gardens can, of course, contain huge numbers of species as illustrated by Jennifer Owen who, at the last count, had recorded some 2,673 species in her quite small garden on the outskirts of Leicester over a period of thirty years. I suppose the GBB records I value most are that of the red ant, Myrmica rubra, which seems only to have arrived this year and spurge-laurel, Daphne laureola, a wild plant that is not at all common locally, but turned up of its own accord a few years ago.
There is also the problem of native or introduced. The gardens of many naturalists/biologists often contain dozens of introduced plants that are native elsewhere in Britain. I have, for example, planted wild service trees, Sorbus torminalis, of local provenance as well as Sorbus arranensis only known in nature on the Isle of Arran in Scotland. Such records need careful qualification if they are to be of use.
One of the things that makes me slightly uneasy is the competitive nature of a BioBlitz. It is not my aim to get more records than others, but simply to understand the dynamics of ecology better and enjoy looking at the wonders of nature. It is just as important to know what is not in a particular place any longer as well as what is. I have not, for example, seen an orange-tip butterfly in the garden this year, but the tree bee, Bombus hypnorum, which has recently colonised Britain from mainland Europe, is currently our commonest bee species.
One small issue that may have been mentioned by older people is use of the term ‘Blitz’. I know it is German for lightning but, as a childhood survivor of the London blitz when more than 100 tonnes of high explosives were dropped on 16 British cities over a period of 267 days, I still find it difficult to dissociate the word with unpleasant and terrifying images. However, I am sure it does not matter as recorders of my generation will soon be gone and overall the GBB seems to have been a very enjoyable project which I am sure will have achieved its objective of getting more people into the habit of recording wildlife.
Patrick Roper's One Square Metre project recently featured on The One Show
Jacob Jackson
My name is Jacob Jackson and I am 10 years old. Ever since I've been able to walk, I've been fascinated by nature – from a bug to a bird, I love it all! I have been recording wildlife since November 2011, with help from the Hull Valley Wildlife Group's Entomological Recorder. We write all our sightings down in Bluebird Technology’s Bird Journal – an amazing wildlife recording software.
We heard about the Garden BioBlitz in the June 2013 issue of the BBC Wildlife Magazine that we subscribe to, and also this year's season of Springwatch. We had never used iRecord before, so my family and I were looking forward to trying it out!
Our BioBlitz started at 9pm on a Saturday, and we went straight out to set up our moth trap, small mammal traps, and pitfall traps. The next day, we checked them and to our disappointment we had nothing in the small mammal or moth trap. However, we had found several species of insect in the 3 pitfall traps that I had set up.
We did numerous other things to maximise the amount of wildlife that we saw, including: putting out bird food, which attracted a Wood Mouse (Apodemus sylvaticus), and making a butterfly bar which did attract flies and ants, but unfortunately no butterflies!
We found a large variety of Hoverfly species, as well as 5 different kinds of one of my favourite garden critters – Woodlice!
We discovered numerous species of snail including Kentish (Monacha cantiana), Garden (Helix aspersa), and Brown-lipped (Cepaea nemoralis). A man called Adrian from iRecord got back to me, saying that he needed confirmation about the Brown-lipped Snail – so we had it confirmed by the Hull Valley Wildlife Group's Entomological Recorder, Barry Warrington.
I did some digging, and also watered the ground, but we found no Earthworms. However, at previous times we had discovered species such as Brandling (Eisenia fetida) and also Night Crawlers (Lumbricus terrestris).
In the evening we were surprised not to see any bats – these are often flying over the garden.
When I submitted our findings into iRecord, I was surprised by how easy it was to use! I would highly recommend using iRecord, it is absolutely brilliant! I will definitely use it again to record nature both in our garden and the surrounding area!
Overall, we found 55 species of fauna, fungi, and flora. The real highlight for me was the quite rare Eyelash Fungus (Scutellinia scuttelata) that was growing around our pond! This got Chris Packham quite excited, when doing the Garden BioBlitz, got us a mention on Springwatch! Though 55 species it is quite a large number, it is quite low for our garden. We usually find Heart-and-Dart (Agrotis exclamationis), Pugs, and other moths in our moth trap. We would also normally see Comma (Polygonia c-album), Peacock (Inachis io), and various species of White Butterfly flying in and around our garden. We have come to the conclusion that on this date, the weather conditions limited the potential number of species that we could have seen.
I am continuing to keep our garden wildlife friendly, and I will always urge my Dad to leave an area of the lawn long and uncut. Doing the BioBlitz really highlighted the fact that our rather small garden is full of life, and I will continue to survey the species in and around it!
Overall, doing the Garden BioBlitz was really fun, and I urge other children to get out there and explore the amazing world of nature that is their own backyard!
You can read more from Jacob on his blog
Dawn Watson
I’ve not done much land based biological recording before, other than the Big Garden Birdwatch – but I do a huge amount of marine recording as Seasearch coordinator for East Anglia and Marine Recorder for Norfolk. I’ve always had a keen interest in the nature around me and a very nerdy tendency to want to know the names of everything!
I saw lots of mentions of the Garden Bioblitz on Facebook and knew it would take place over a weekend when I had the garden to myself and plenty of time to wander around at different times, I thought it would be fun to see what was there.
I had not previously used iRecord and assumed it was related to iSpot, still a bit hazy on the details to be honest! I found getting going a bit clunky, but I liked the fact that putting in a few letters of the species name gave me choices that usually included the one I was looking for.
I must admit, the league table on iRecord really did spur me on – I was very surprised to even appear on it after my first lot of records went in. It also seemed a bit sad that there was very little other activity in Suffolk – I did try to prod people! I was mainly held back by a lack of good keys for some groups, the mosses and meadow grasses were a bit beyond my Roger Philips guide, mainly because the grasses were held back by the weather.
I noticed lots of automated messages on the site saying I might get contacted about my records, but I haven’t had any feedback from verifiers yet, although with over 22,000 Garden Bioblitz records I assume they have a lot to get through!
My best find was the red and black froghopper Cercopsis vulnerata, which was literally sitting right outside the back door! I’ve never seen one before and probably won’t again, as it spends most of its time underground! The weather over the weekend was dull and very windy, so many insects were either not present, or getting blown around too much to see properly. We probably now have at least eight species of bumblebee in the garden which I didn’t see during the Bioblitz. We now also have goldcrests nesting in the garden, which would have been my best record!
The main thing I learned from this experience was how little I know about some groups and how poor some of my books are! We are very lucky to have half an acre of overgrown garden with an untouched grazing meadow on one side and agricultural crops on the other, so there are plenty of species still to be discovered next year!
This was a very positive experience for me and I would love to be able to do something similar with my Seasearch records, an online recording scheme would certainly encourage more divers to input their findings!
Liz Shaw
I am one of the founding members of the Garden BioBlitz, so I already knew plenty about it! We decided to run it because we thought it would be fun to find out what was living in our gardens, and wanted to inspire people to engage with their own garden wildlife.
From a personal point of view, I have done various types of wildlife recording before, including biodiversity surveys abroad, taking part in BioBlitz events in the UK, and recording wildlife sightings using apps such as the BTO’s BirdTrack app.
I have also used iRecord before, as part of the GBB ‘trial’ event in 2012, when we were testing the idea and how to record our sightings. I found it quite straightforward to use – it was clear and simple and easy to see what you had to do. The only issues I found were that there wasn’t an obvious way to save your list of sightings part way through (other than by submitting what you had so far), so when I had an issue with my internet connection the records I had just entered were lost.
I really like how quick and easy it is to upload photos, even when the files are quite large. I did find going back and editing my records a bit confusing though – it took me back to the start of the GBB recording pages, whereas it would be handy to be able to go directly to a selected record.
Regarding the recorder league table I knew I was never going to beat Richard Comont (!) but, it was a good way of seeing how everyone was doing and made me want to find more!
I was contacted by one verifier,as a result of one of my records, who said he would need a specimen to be able to identify the species.
I’d definitely use iRecord again, although I'd be more likely to use it for particularly unusual or interesting finds rather than regularly submitting all the things I see (just due to lack of time!).
As this was my third year in a row of ‘bioblitzing’ my garden, I found pretty much what I expected, but that was far more than I would have ever thought would be in a tiny, urban patio garden. I was surprised this year by an apparent lack of insects, but my best finds were probably a beautiful crab spider and a couple of bee-mimicking hoverflies.
I’m always trying to find ways to improve my garden for wildlife, but it was interesting to note which plants and flowers were attracting the most insects as I can use this to try and attract even more in future.