Did You See Something Unusual In The Countryside?
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Don’t just enjoy that rare wildlife moment all to yourself – tell the world!
Did you know that there are wildlife charities and businesses out there that would love to know what you see on your day to day trips out of town – and even what you see closer to home!
You don’t need to wait for a specific ‘wildlife survey’ to come up – you can just tell them what you see when you see it. Even if it isn’t that unusual. I mean a fox in your garden, squirrels in the city centre or the odd bird of prey by the roadside: they are all important to someone!
The Problem:
I recently saw the scatter distribution maps of rabbit populations and thought; why are there so many areas without rabbits in them – I thought they were everywhere?
Well, they are everywhere, it’s just that some people think that rabbits are so common that they needn’t include them in the survey! As a result it looked like there were huge areas of the UK without any bunnies!
And of course, we all assumed that hedgehogs were in every-one’s back garden until they actually did a survey and found that they weren’t! They had gradually becoming less and less common – but we hadn’t noticed!
So why not start becoming a contributor to your local – and ultimately the national - database for our wildlife. And it could also help you to brush up on you species id!
Or you can just specialise a bit if you find that easier, like reporting all the species that you see in your garden only. Or reporting only the species you already know, or making a point of trying to find the unusual sightings!
It’s Easy To Do…
And quite addictive. I have found myself reporting everything I see apart from only the very very obvious – like herring gulls on the sea front and swans on the Thames! Everyone can see them every day – so I can leave those for someone else to report or wait for a general bird survey.
Only if I DON’T see them will I report anything!
There is always a space for other comments too, so you could say what the animal was doing at the time, how long it was doing it, and other times you have seen it there. Or even whether you were sitting still or making a noise. It could all be useful to the people at the other end.
So rather than you deciding what is important – leave it to the experts! And anyway – they take your email address on the form, so will no doubt politely ask you to stop sending certain sightings in if you get a bit too enthusiastic!
Nearly all these reporting systems will ask you what your location is based on the Ordnance Survey grid system as well – so find out yours at home for starters, and use Multi-map to find all the others (it has a OS version and gives you the exact location!).
Tiny Little Mouse
And if you can manage to get a photo of the said creature – that could well be a bonus, especially if it a rare sighting, and different colouration or a migratory species. And then at least the experts can get their beady eyes on the specimen – it could be more unusual than you think……
So, it’s over to you to start emailing in your sightings!
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