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When poetry and BioBlitz collide… | Citizen Science

It’s BioBlitz,

The greatest hits,

Of nature amidst London’s bricks,

That’s BioBlitz…..

Yesterday and today, scientists and visitors are working together in the Natural History Museum’s Wildlife Garden to record as many different plants, animals and fungi as possible.  If you’re visiting today, come and join us outside (near the Orange Zone) and get involved in guided walks and surveys, or grab a plastic pot and and identification guide and go bug hunting!

BioBlitzflowerlogoThese wildlife recording challenges are called BioBlitzes and we’ve run lots of them all over the UK over the past few years.  A couple of years ago, when I was working with my friend Maria from Greenspace Information for Greater London to run the Brompton Cemetery BioBlitz, she happened upon the Poetry Takeaway at the Roundhouse in Camden and had an amazing poet, Laurie Eaves, write a poem for her completely off the cuff, about BioBlitz.  It’s an awesome poem so I thought I’d share it here…enjoy!

BioBlitz

It’s BioBlitz,

The greatest hits,

Of nature amidst London’s bricks,

That’s BioBlitz.

It’s botanists,

And naturalists,

Who capture ants and plants on lists,

Continue reading “When poetry and BioBlitz collide… | Citizen Science”

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Strange Strandings – The case of a Risso’s dolphin in the southern North Sea | Cetacean Strandings Investigation Programme

A recent stranding gained media attention last week as a Risso’s dolphin (Grampus griseus) washed up on a beach in Norfolk. The Cetacean Strandings Investigation Programme (CSIP) receives around 10 reports of Risso’s dolphins stranding every year, but most of these reports are concentrated in Scotland and the west coast of the UK. This unusual stranding in the southern North Sea meant it was crucial for the CSIP team to retrieve this animal for post-mortem. Post-mortems are essential for us to understand how the animal died, and the possible series of events which may have contributed or occurred leading up to its death.

WARNING: This blog contains photographs of dead stranded cetaceans and post-mortem findings which you may find upsetting

Continue reading “Strange Strandings – The case of a Risso’s dolphin in the southern North Sea | Cetacean Strandings Investigation Programme”

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Today is a great day to explore nature! |Citizen Science

April 14 2018  is Citizen Science Day,  the start of a week celebrating all the amazing ways that people around the world contribute to science.

Citizen scientists are people like you and me, everyone from school children, to families, to dedicated volunteers, to local nature groups. Some go out into the wild to find and record nature, but you can even do science by joining projects at home.

Continue reading “Today is a great day to explore nature! |Citizen Science”

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A beach walkers guide to identification of whales, dolphins & porpoises | Cetacean Strandings Investigation Programme

When a call comes in to the Cetacean Strandings Investigation Programme (CSIP) hotline, the details of a stranding can often be minimal and somewhat vague. An animal may be highly decomposed, inaccessible or lack features for it to be identified. As a research assistant for CSIP, my job is to investigate a stranding and try to gather as much information as possible so an accurate identification can be made. This blog post provides a simple guide for everyone to try and identify dolphins, whales and porpoises commonly washed up on British coastlines.

WARNING: This blog contains photographs of dead and injured stranded cetaceans which you may find upsetting

Continue reading “A beach walkers guide to identification of whales, dolphins & porpoises | Cetacean Strandings Investigation Programme”

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Scuba diving, singing and seaweeds: Meet museum scientist Juliet Brodie | Big Seaweed Search

The film below gives you a glimpse into the working life of seaweed researcher Prof. Juliet Brodie. Juliet is the lead researcher on the Big Seaweed Search project and part of the team that created the beautiful new seaweed display in the Museum’s Hintze Hall.

You can meet Juliet and the team this Friday evening at the Museum’s free Science  Uncovered event, part of European Researchers’ Night, but in the meantime, I interviewed Juliet to find out more about what really makes her tick and what got her into studying seaweeds in the first place… Continue reading “Scuba diving, singing and seaweeds: Meet museum scientist Juliet Brodie | Big Seaweed Search”

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The Miniature Lives Magnified project is now complete!

A very big thank-you to the 1,000-plus in-house Visiteers and online Volunteers who helped us to extract research data from over 6,000 microscope slides of the world’s smallest insects – the chalcid parasitoid wasps. The Miniature Lives Magnified project is now closed, but you can still take part in our Digital Collections Programme by helping us with our microscope slides of Foraminifera in Miniature Fossils Magnified.

Over the course of the summer we will be processing the chalcid collection’s specimen label data that was transcribed by our digital volunteers. It will become available on the Museum’s Data Portal for anyone in the world to study.

Continue reading “The Miniature Lives Magnified project is now complete!”

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Take part in ocean science – on the beach or from your computer! | Citizen Science

With good weather forecast for most of the UK this coming weekend, and local schools breaking for half-term, many of you will be making a bee-line for the coasts… where you could be rock-pooling for science!

The Big Seaweed Search

Our Big Seaweed Search invites you to take photos of seaweeds and submit your observations online to help Museum researcher Juliet Brodie better understand how rising sea temperatures and other changes are affecting our beautiful seas.

Photo showing a member of the Museum staff standing behind a table with trays of different seaweeds on top of it, leaning forward to talk with a child and their family stood in front of the table.
Jules Agate from the Marine Conservation Society and staff from the Museum showcase the Big Seaweed Search at the 2017 Lyme Regis Fossil Festival

You can request a free Big Seaweed Search guide by emailing your name and postal address to seaweeds@nhm.ac.uk, or download and print your own to find out how to take part. In fact, the Museum is celebrating the oceans this year, and there are many ways to get involved in our year-long exploration of the marine world! Continue reading “Take part in ocean science – on the beach or from your computer! | Citizen Science”

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Are you ready for an ocean adventure? | Citizen Science

We’re on the road to Lyme Regis in Dorset for the Lyme Regis Fossil Festival, taking place in the town centre from Friday 28 to Sunday 30 April (it’ll be the fifth time I’ve worked at the festival and it’s always brilliant fun!).

Photo looking out to sea from the beach near Lyme Regis. Rocks are visible between the photographer and the sea and a grey, cloudy sky at top.
The fossil-rich coast at Lyme Regis

With a theme of ‘Time, Tide and Tectonics’, this year’s festival is celebrating everything to do with the sea and how our watery planet has changed (and it still changing) over time.

Continue reading “Are you ready for an ocean adventure? | Citizen Science”

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Your best rockpooling photos | Big Seaweed Search

Seaweed scientist Professor Juliet Brodie tells us about the fantastic photos submitted through the Big Seaweed Search so far.

I’m fascinated by seaweeds and my research includes finding out about their diversity, and the impact of climate change and ocean acidification on their distribution. As part of this, I worked with my colleagues across the Museum to set up the Big Seaweed Search and I’m so pleased to see that lots of you have taken part and have sent your photos in for my research. I’ve just been exploring the first few months of data entered and I’m very excited by what I have seen so far.

Photo showing the seaweeds in the centre, with arrows added to show their location (coral weeds to the right of centre, and calcified crusts to the left of centre)
Some people think seaweeds are dull and brown but I was very taken with this beautiful image of the pink coral weeds (white arrow) and calcified crusts (black arrow) growing together. Photo © Jessica Jennings

In particular, the photographs people have uploaded are excellent as they enable me to tell very quickly whether a seaweed has been identified correctly or not – this is essential for me to be able to use the observations in my research.

Continue reading “Your best rockpooling photos | Big Seaweed Search”

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Visiteering with WeDigBio and the Department for Transport | Digital Collections Programme

Visiteering offers one day volunteering opportunities to the public, linking our Museum narratives to a series of set ‘challenges’ relating to our collections. On 20 October we completed our first collaborative Visiteering session to coincide with a worldwide transcription event run by WeDigBio.

Photo showing Margaret standing on the right hand side speaking to a group of people sitting in a semi-circle around her.
Margaret explains the importance of digitising our collections to the Dangerous Goods Group from the Department of Transport
The WeDigBio logo
The Museum's Visiteer logo

WeDigBio, is a four day event that engages global participants online and onsite in digitising natural history collections. Although our main focus was our Visiteers in the lab for a day, we also encouraged other visitors to the museum to engage in the project via posters with QR codes and promoted a worldwide audience to get involved with blogposts and social media promotion prior, during and post event.

Continue reading “Visiteering with WeDigBio and the Department for Transport | Digital Collections Programme”