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NBN Award recipients 2024
The winners and highly commended recipients of the NBN Awards for Wildlife Recording 2024 were announced at the Merseyside Maritime Museum, in Liverpool, on Thursday 21 November 2024.
These annual national Awards recognise and celebrate the outstanding contributions adults and young people are making to wildlife recording and data sharing, which is helping to improve our understanding of the UK’s biodiversity and assisting conservation efforts.
There are seven Award categories this year:
- NBN Lifetime Achievement Award (open to individuals 21 years +)
- NBN Verifier’s Award (open to individuals 21 years +)
- NBN Young Person’s Award (open to individuals aged 11-20)
- NBN Newcomer Award (open to individuals 21 years +)
- NBN Award for Marine Wildlife Recording (open to individuals 21 years +)
- NBN Award for Terrestrial Wildlife Recording (open to individuals 21 years +)
- NBN Group Award (no age restrictions)
NBN Lifetime Achievement Award 2024
Roger Morris (from Surrey) and Stuart Ball (from Cambridgeshire) are the joint-winners of the inaugural NBN Lifetime Achievement Award 2024. This duo has been joint scheme organisers for the Hoverfly Recording Scheme since 1990. In the 1990s they successfully reinvigorated the scheme after a period of relative inactivity, and it has gone from strength to strength since then – with this pair at the helm. They published a provisional hoverfly atlas in 2000, followed by a full atlas in 2011, and have continued to collate a very large number of records from very many recorders since then.
Roger Morris, joint-winner of the NBN Lifetime Achievement Award 2024, says:
“Conservation science needs robust datasets and therefore the objective of the scheme is not only to encourage high levels of recording but also to try to ensure that recording is comprehensive.”
Stuart Ball, joint-winner of the NBN Lifetime Achievement Award 2024, adds:
“I have been interested for close on 50 years in how to capture, store and analyse records including being involved in designing, writing and supporting recording systems and methods of analysis such as mapping, extracting trends and species distribution modelling. I have also had a long-term interest in automating identification – such as multi matching keys, image recognition, etc.”
Download photo of Stuart Ball.
Lin Baldock (from Dorset) is highly commended for the inaugural NBN Lifetime Achievement Award 2024 and has been diving for over 40 years and recording marine wildlife within the Seasearch programme for 30 years. During this time, she has made over a staggering 39,000 taxonomic records, including 1435 different taxa, covering much of our marine biodiversity. In addition, Lin has made more than 2100 biotope records from 228 different biotopes. She has also added over 1000 extra biotope determinations from records made by other volunteers.
Lin Baldock, highly commended for the NBN Lifetime Achievement Award 2024 says:
“My main driver for recording the marine wildlife in my local area is that few people have the opportunity to enjoy and record marine wildlife below the waves, so it enables me to highlight the extraordinary diversity of marine life right on our doorstep. As a diver I also like to understand species distributions and the habitats in which they occur and currently I am compiling an atlas of Dorset seaweeds. My role as Seasearch coordinator for Dorset has given me a great opportunity to get a wide overview of species distributions locally.”
NBN Verifier’s Award 2024
Stuart Roberts (from Wiltshire) and Matt Smith (from Berkshire) are the joint-winners of the inaugural NBN Verifier’s Award 2024. This pair are part of the verification team for Bees Wasps & Ants Recording Society (BWARS), and between them they have carried out the bulk of the verification for aculeate Hymenoptera in iRecord. They also founded the UK Bees, Wasps and Ants group on Facebook, which now has over 28,000 members, many of whom have benefited from the duo’s guidance on identification, recording and natural history. While active on iSpot and iNaturalist – both these individuals have verified over 150,000 records each on iRecord, having been involved since the early days of iRecord in 2012/2013.
Stuart Roberts, joint-winner of the inaugural NBN Verifier’s Award 2024, says:
“I am passionately interested in bringing in new enthusiasts and recorders alike. I like to help volunteer recorders feel they are part of a world that is bigger than the individual and I have always believed that the value of data is in its use rather than its mere possession.”
Download photo of Stuart Roberts.
Matt Smith, joint-winner of the inaugural NBN Verifier’s Award 2024, adds:
“We encourage new recorders who have had their photos identified via Facebook to post them on iRecord so they are not ‘lost’. If we ask them to submit their records then we need to verify them to encourage more citizen science recording while keeping the data quality of the verified records high.”
Mark Cubitt (from West Lothian) is highly commended for the inaugural NBN Verifier’s Award 2024. He verifies all macro and micro moth records for the three vice-counties that cover the Lothians namely West, Mid and East – i.e. vice-counties 82, 83 and 84. Once collated and verified he then passes them on to Butterfly Conservation’s National Moth Recording Scheme for onward upload to the NBN Atlas. This person has been a Vice-County recorder for West Lothian for over ten years and has taken on the other VC roles as the previous recorders have retired or stepped down.
Mark Cubitt, highly commended for the inaugural NBN Verifier’s Award 2024, says:
“Biological recording is the foundation for conservation action and the information gained can be presented back to recorders and others interested in nature to enthuse and encourage an interest in wildlife. As a verifier I get the opportunity to be inspired by, interact with, inform and encourage individual recorders across the Lothian area about recording and interest in moths.”
Download photo of Mark Cubitt.
NBN Young Person’s Award 2024
18-year old Ben Rumsby (from Essex) is the winner of the NBN Young Person’s Award 2024 and has been a member of RSPB for 11 years, of Essex Wildlife Trust for 12 years, of BTO for 8 years and of Essex Bird Watching Society for 5 years. He has been a registered volunteer for RSPB for over three years, helping with the WEBS Survey and Redshank & Lapwing survey. Ben volunteers every Saturday surveying birds on site – for around 25 hours per month – opening hides and safety checks and helping to run Young Birders, and ‘birding for beginners’ walks. He also volunteers with Essex Wildlife Trust doing glow worm surveys – usually three times a year.
Ben Rumsby, winner of the NBN Young Person’s Award 2024, enthuses:
“What excites me about biological recording is the thrill of how each recording session is different and what you might find. Since becoming a volunteer at RSPB Rainham Marshes I help with the Lapwing and Redshank Wader Surveys as well as undertaking Breeding Bird Surveys as well. I enjoy being able to contribute all vital data recording towards the site and nationwide.”
Download photo of Ben Rumsby.
18-year old Aoife (from County Down) is highly commended for the NBN Young Person’s Award 2024 and has been an Ulster Wildlife Volunteer for 4 years. Despite living over an hour away from the nearest mature reserve she attends monthly sessions where she helps out with habitat maintenance, assists at community events and undertakes butterfly and bird counts. This young person has also been a member of the Wild Youth Steering Group for 3 years – a project which has supported 5,000 young people from deprived parts of Belfast to experience and connect with nature.
Aoife, highly commended for the NBN Young Person’s Award 2024, says:
“Biological recording is one of the best ways to learn about wildlife and improve identification skills. There are so many ways you can contribute, this makes it really exciting and means everyone can get involved. The data collected is very important for deciding which species and habitats need protection and can help monitor the effectiveness of conservation efforts. It’s really rewarding knowing you are genuinely doing something to help wildlife conservation.”
NBN Newcomer Award 2024
Charlotte Shenkin (from Jersey) is the winner of the NBN Newcomer Award 2024 and first became interested in fungi in October 2022. She has a background in conservation of reptiles and amphibians and as a Biology teacher, but no previous involvement or knowledge on fungi. Charlotte’s identification and microscopy skills are self-taught and she has recorded 900 fungi specimens from March to December 2023. Her records have been added to the Jersey Biodiversity Centre database. She has recorded 25+ species of fungi that were previously unseen in Jersey and has sent various rare samples to Kew to be stored. Charlotte also found a UK-first in July 2023, Russula stenocystidiata which was confirmed by DNA and is officially the 154th species of Russula in the UK.
Charlotte Shenkin, winner of the NBN Newcomer Award 2024, says:
“I’m irresistibly drawn to surveying and recording fungi, because it’s like there is an exciting treasure hunt on, 24/7, all year round! You just have to start looking! Finding and recording fungi gives a me the perfect blend of mindful meditation, immersion in nature, scientific curiosity, collecting data and knowledge and ultimately the enjoyment of sharing that knowledge with others. Being able to enhance scientific understanding of what’s growing where is really the icing on the cake.”
Download photo of Charlotte Shenkin.
Karen Fry (from Nottinghamshire) is highly commended for the NBN Newcomer Award 2024 and has a passion for urban wildlife – demonstrated by her membership and commitment to a number of wildlife groups for many years. However, this newcomer’s love for recording really took off in 2020 as part of the City Nature Challenge. Since then, Karen has devoted herself to learning much more about urban wildlife, primarily – but not exclusively – botanical species. In 2022 she received some iRecord training from the Field Studies Council and has really taken to iNaturalistUK to record the urban flora. As a lead player for the Notts Wildlife Trust City Local group, Karen has been instrumental in allowing the group to offer botanical walks.
Karen Fry, highly commended for the NBN Newcomer Award 2024, says:
“I always describe myself as an enthusiast rather than an expert – which is being truthful about my level of expertise, as well as how I feel about plant ID. Knowing what plants are around us reveals a secret world, gong on un-noticed by most people, especially in the city. City flora absolutely fascinates me as you just don’t know what you are going to find next, or where – plants from the other side of the world, or local rarities. It was City Nature Challenge in 2020 which opened my eyes to this, and got me using iNaturalist.”
Download photo of Karen Fry.
NBN Award for Marine Wildlife Recording 2024
Charlotte Bolton (from Dorset) is the winner of the NBN Award for Marine Wildlife Recording 2024. She has led the Seasearch programme of the Marine Conservation Society since 2016. During this time, Charlotte has overseen the collection, collation and quality control of over 300,000 records. She has been recording marine wildlife for over sixteen years and her personal contribution recently exceeded an incredible 10,000 records spanning the full range of marine diversity from 21 different Phyla. More than 90% of these records also include estimates of abundance. In addition to taxonomic records, Charlotte has also made almost 1000 habitat records from a remarkable 132 different habitats (or biotopes) and, as a post-survey assessor, has determined hundreds of biotopes from the records of others.
Charlotte Bolton, winner of the NBN Award for Marine Wildlife Recording 2024, says:
“Having learned to dive in the Mediterranean over 20 years ago, I needed to learn to use a drysuit and dive in the UK to satisfy my urge to be underwater. I discovered Seasearch at about the same time, and was immediately hooked! It’s great to put my hobby to good use and collect data to support conservation and management initiatives, not to mention forming friendships with like-minded people.”
Download photo of Charlotte Bolton.
Lin Baldock (from Dorset) is highly commended for the NBN Award for Marine Wildlife Recording 2024 and has been involved in training new recorders for many years and has mentored several hundred Seasearchers, including the current head of Seasearch. As a highly-regarded field phycologist, she is single-handedly responsible for promoting Seasearch seaweed recording in Dorset, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, as well as more widely. Lin has totally embraced Seasearch’s involvement of snorkellers and beach walkers in biological recording. She provides talks and training for local volunteer groups, for example the Dorset Flora Group and Dorset Wildlife Trust as well as for Seasearch.
Lin Baldock, highly commended for the NBN Award for Marine Wildlife Recording 2024, says:
“My main driver for recording the marine wildlife in my local area is that few people have the opportunity to enjoy and record marine wildlife below the waves, so it enables me to highlight the extraordinary diversity of marine life right on our doorstep. As a diver I also like to understand species distributions and the habitats in which they occur and currently I am compiling an atlas of Dorset seaweeds. My role as Seasearch coordinator for Dorset has given me a great opportunity to get a wide overview of species distributions locally.”
NBN Award for Terrestrial Wildlife Recording 2024
Katty Baird (from East Lothian) is the winner of the NBN Award for Terrestrial Wildlife Recording 2024. She has taken the recording of moths in East Lothian to new heights – filling in many gaps in distribution by mobile trapping, and in the process, adding several new species – some new to Scotland. Katty has encouraged others to develop their interest in moths through organising moth trapping events, supporting school projects and lending traps to beginners, as well as by giving talks to local and national wildlife groups. Not only has Katty written a book “Meetings with moths” but she has also written a blog relating her moth finds to those of Alice Balfour, a lady who lived in East Lothian a hundred years ago – so reaching a wider audience of people keen on history who might not otherwise be interested in moths or in what their changing distribution tells us about climate change.
Katty Baird, winner of the NBN Award for Terrestrial Wildlife Recording 2024, says:
“Biological recording has led me to get to know my local area and its wildlife better – it’s always exciting to discover new species on your doorstep. The biological recording community is very supportive and being part of that, both learning from others and sharing my knowledge, is very rewarding.”
Download photo of Katty Baird.
Dave Bentley, (from Greater Manchester) is highly commended for the NBN Award for Terrestrial Wildlife Recording 2024. He has been a freshwater ecologist working mainly in North West England professionally since 1993. In the last decade he moved on to surveying many more terrestrial habitats and has developed a wide interest in terrestrial entomology. He records invertebrates, amphibians (and reptiles when found), mammals, birds (producing the local annual bird report), higher plants, bryophytes (and some lichens), and fungi, with a particular interest in waxcap CHEGD. This terrestrial recorder is also the ecology lead for the Judicial Review of the county spatial plan.
Dave Bentley, highly commended for the NBN Award for Terrestrial Wildlife Recording 2024, says:
“I first got involved in wildlife recording back in the 1980s and over the decades I have expanded into more terrestrial botany and terrestrial invertebrate groups, my learning assisted by the Tanyptera Project based at Liverpool World Museum. Which brings me to the last 4 years spent as a warden in my local country park at Elton Reservoir – the fourth largest wetland in Greater Manchester, and the most diverse as it includes multiple different registered Sites of Biological Importance.”
Download photo of Dave Bentley.
NBN Group Award 2024
MammalWeb is the winner of the NBN Group Award 2024. It is a national not-for-profit organisation, established in 2013 in collaboration between Durham University and Durham Wildlife Trust, to address the information deficit on the status and ecology of UK and European wild mammals. Camera traps are deployed by members of the public to capture images of wildlife and the resultant images are uploaded to MammalWeb where they are then classified online, either by the people that deployed the camera traps (‘trappers’) or by other participants (‘spotters’). MammalWeb integrates AI and machine-learning to help process the millions of images captured, filtering out images of humans and false triggers (containing no wildlife) so that participant effort can be focussed on those images likely to contain animals.
Philip Stephens, Founding Director of MammalWeb – the winner of the NBN Group Award 2024, says:
“We’re a huge community of enthusiasts, with a great range of motivations. The main thing that unites us is a fascination for the wild mammals around us. Although they are mostly elusive and secretive, we love the insights we can gain through the use of camera traps, giving us glimpses into their distribution, abundance and behaviours, and assisting with their conservation!”
Download photo of a member of MammalWeb.
The UK-wide Amphibian and Reptile Groups of the UK (ARGUK) is highly commended for the NBN Group Award 2024. It is committed to promoting the preservation, conservation and welfare of the UK’s native amphibians, reptiles and their natural environment by supporting surveying and monitoring, habitat creation and restoration, welfare activities (such as toad patrolling) and public education and outreach – through a network of 45 independent, volunteer-led, county-based amphibian and reptile groups (ARGs) across England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Channel Islands.
Angela Julian, Coordinator of the Amphibian and Reptile Groups of the UK – highly commended for the NBN Group Award 2024, says:
“Biological recording is at the heart of the amphibian and reptile groups’ network – be it: surveying new sites, long term monitoring at known sites, running ecological survey training sessions and by collecting records from the wider public and other local and national wildlife and conservation groups, through events, via online recording portals or by supporting national schemes such as PondNet and the National Amphibian and Reptile Recording Scheme (NARRS).
“Each group takes responsibility for collecting, verifying and managing records for all amphibians and reptiles in their county or region, and our local recorders typically verify records for Record Pool, iRecord and iNaturalist, as well as other local or species-specific recording schemes including, ‘Make the Adder Count’ and ‘What’s in Your Pond’.”
Download photo of some members of Amphibian and Reptile Groups of the UK.
Lisa Chilton, Chief Executive Officer of the NBN Trust, says:
“We are delighted to be celebrating the achievements of these NBN Award winners today. These amazing wildlife recorders, who are advancing our knowledge of the UK’s biodiversity – as well as inspiring others to take up the monitoring of wildlife – are wholly deserving of our congratulations!
“Recording which plants, animals and fungi exist in different locations and habitats is the foundation of wildlife conservation – without this vital information we can’t tell if our collective efforts to save and restore different species are working or not. Today’s Award-winning wildlife recorders – many of them volunteers – are all making their wildlife data work to restore nature!”
NBN Awards Sponsors 2024
This year we are indebted to seven organisations for their generous support and sponsorship of the prizes:
1. RSPB
2. Opticron
3. Habitat Aid
4. Field Studies Council (FSC)
7. NHBS
John Sawyer NBN Open Data Award 2024
This Award is given to a member of the National Biodiversity Network Trust who is making a valuable contribution to open biodiversity data in the UK, and helping achieve the NBN Trust’s mission of “making data work for nature”.
The Terrestrial Heteroptera Recording Scheme (Shieldbugs & allied species) is the winner of the John Sawyer NBN Open Data Award 2024.
This national recording scheme shares over 160,000 records in three data resources on the NBN Atlas of 95 species from the taxon group. 100% of their records have verified identifications. 89% of the records are shared on an Open licence and 82% have a resolution of 100 m or higher. The datasets cover the period 1800 to October of this year.