A BioBlitz is a race against the clock to find and record as many living things as possible within a specific area over a set period of time. These observations are then used for scientific research and environmental monitoring by our wildlife garden managers and are shared with scientists in the UK and abroad. Our Autumn BioBlitz in the Wildlife Garden was on the 21st October, we had typical autumn weather with a lot of rain, but still saw interesting wildlife.
The Citizen Science team hosted the 2nd South-East Citizen Science Meetup at the Angela Marmont Centre last Friday. As an effort to bring together researchers and practitioners in the field, the ExCiteS research group (UCL) had held the first Citizen Science meetup in London back in January 2019, as part of the Doing It Together Science (DITOs) project. The informal concept of meetups brought together a wide range of citizen science expertise and so we decided to host the next meet up at the Natural History Museum.
Over the last weekend of April, London competed with over 150 cities worldwide in the City Nature Challenge. People across the globe banded together and spent four days finding as much wildlife and nature as possible in their respective cities. London was one of the top five cities in Europe, with 5470 observations of 1115 different species recorded by 258 people in total.
Continuing the blogs about the Autumn BioBlitz in the Museum’s wildlife garden, we would like to introduce you to more species found during the day! BioBlitzes are only one of the ways wildlife garden species are being recorded; biological recordings take place in the garden in many different ways all year round.
Read on to learn more about the autumn findings in the amazing wildlife garden including a species very rare to the UK and one which made it to a top 10 list!
As part of the Cetacean Strandings Investigation Programme (CSIP), we are often focused on the death of animal and can overlook the amazing lives of marine creatures before they sadly wash up along our coastlines. British waters are home to over 28 different species of whales, dolphins and porpoises, collectively known as cetaceans.
In the UK, the most numerous (and smallest) of these is the harbour porpoise (Phocoena phocoena). Unsurprisingly, these porpoises therefore make up the majority of strandings in the UK.
Across the UK, many different creatures wash up on our shores. The Cetacean Strandings Investigation Programme (CSIP) is responsible for documenting stranded animals in the UK and retrieves a portion of those that strand for post-mortem examination every year. The main bulk of the project is made up of cetaceans – a group of marine mammals comprised of whales, dolphins and porpoises.
However, many people don’t realise the project also responds to strandings of sharks. Since 2007, the CSIP has recorded the stranding of basking sharks (Cetorhinus maximus) across the UK and more recently secured funding to expand the research to other large-bodied sharks such as porbeagles (Lamna nasus), angel sharks (Squatina squatina) and blue sharks (Prionace glauca).
WARNING: This blog contains photographs of dead stranded sharks which you may find upsetting
In the latest BioBlitz which took place in the Museum’s Wildlife Garden in October, we had a look in the garden’s pond to discover what kind of animals leave there! This is the second part of the blog where we share the results with you.
In the latest BioBlitz which took place in the Museum’s Wildlife Garden, we had a look in the garden’s pond to discover what kind of animals live there! We were very excited to see many of you taking part in our pond dipping and we would like to share with you what we found.
Come and join Museum scientists, naturalists and other nature enthusiasts for a fun day of discovering wildlife in the heart of London!
The BioBlitz is back at the Natural History Museum on Thursday 25 October 2018. Head to the Wildlife Garden in the Orange Zone of the Museum and prepare to step into a world full of wildlife ready to be explored.
Butterfly survey with Museum scientist Geoff Martin
A BioBlitz is a race against the clock to find and record as many living things as possible within a specific area over a set period of time. These observations, which you will help to gather, are then used for scientific research and environmental monitoring by our wildlife garden managers and are shared with scientists in the UK and abroad.
We discovered 12 species that had never been recorded in the Wildlife Garden before when we BioBlitzed in May half term – three spiders, seven flies, an aphid and a moth. It just shows that if you look carefully, there are new and exciting things to discover even in our own gardens! What will we find this time round?
The Cetacean Strandings Investigation Programme (CSIP) was recently called out to the stranding of a harbour porpoise, Phocoena phocoena, in Westward Ho! in north Devon. The porpoise was a suitable candidate to collect for post-mortem, and so plans were made for the strandings team to travel to pick it up.
As part of the trip to Westward Ho!, a ranger from Northam Burrows Country Park asked if the Museum was able to provide an identification on three whale vertebrae they had, to allow them to display the bones in their visitors centre. Little did anyone know the full story behind the vertebrae was about to be uncovered!
