Tag: Biological recording

Posted on

Reaching the halfway point | Identification Trainers for the Future

Our initial cohort of ID Trainers for the Future are nearing the end of Phase 2 of their 12-month long traineeship – Chloe Rose provides an update on the work they’ve been doing so far:

Over the last six months you will have heard all about the vast array of workshops we’ve had delivered to us by the Museum’s experts, the beautiful parts of the country we’ve visited for field trips and the various different projects we’ve all been working on. It has been an action packed, whirlwind and we’ve all gained so much. But it’s now time to wrap things up as we head towards Phase 3 of the traineeship. This will mean the five of us going off on our separate ways for three months, to spend time with one of the Museum’s curation teams.

Photo of the ID Trainers walking to a fieldwork site
Setting out to perform Hymenoptera fieldwork

Here is where we will get the opportunity to refine our identification, fieldwork and curatorial skills to one particular species group. Between us we will be covering beetles, dragonflies, lichens and flowering plants. My project will involve working on the hymenoptera collections and looking at an understudied subfamily of parasitic wasps. I will be required to sort and describe the species and look to writing a comprehensive key for identification purposes. Watch this space for future updates on how our curation projects are going. For now, though, back to what we have been doing during August.

Continue reading “Reaching the halfway point | Identification Trainers for the Future”

Posted on

Introducing Katy Potts | Identification Trainers for the Future

The next of our new trainees to introduce themselves is Katy Potts. Katy is a keen entomologist and has volunteered with the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology and most recently with our own Coleoptera department before joining the traineeship programme:

I have been an amateur entomologist for the past 3 years and I am passionate about all aspects of wildlife, but particularly things with six legs. I recently graduated from Plymouth University where I studied Conservation Biology, since I graduated I have been keen to gain more knowledge in the identification of UK wildlife with particular focus on conservation. I am very interested in all aspects of wildlife but I am fascinated with insects, I find their morphology, behaviour and evolution extremely interesting.

ID Trainer for the Future Katy Potts, with a drawer of coleoptera from the Museum's collection
ID Trainer for the Future Katy Potts, with a drawer of coleoptera from the Museum’s collection

Over the last four years I have been involved with public engagement events with Opal and Buglife where we ran invertebrate surveys and BioBlitz projects to encourage the public to become interested in their local wildlife. I was also involved with a pollinator survey run by the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology that involved me surveying for hoverflies and bumblebees on Dartmoor and then identifying specimens to species level. This survey ignited my passion for identification further and I engaged in entomological and recording communities to develop my understanding.

Continue reading “Introducing Katy Potts | Identification Trainers for the Future”

Posted on

Reviewing a new record in the Wildlife Garden | UK Wildlife

While winter tasks in the Wildlife Garden kept most of us busy outside for the first quarter of the year, these cold months are also a good excuse to hunker down inside and look back at the previous season’s species records, enter new records on our database and consolidate reports on our findings.

As mentioned in one of our early blogs biological recording is carried out – like most activities here – with the help of many volunteers (specialists as well as beginners), and naturally our own scientists, during the course of their working day. Sometimes we enlist the help of aspiring young scientists…

Volunteer Alex Domenge has spent days entering records on the Wildlife Garden database
Volunteer Alex Domenge has spent days entering records on the Wildlife Garden database

Recording is carried out by observation and surveys. From mosses on walls, rocks and bare ground and the animals that inhabit these miniature forests, to the tree tops where great and blue tits may be spotted feeding on aphids and other small insects in the upper branches, as well as high flying butterflies such as the purple hairstreak that feed off honeydew.

Purple hairstreak butterfly (Favonius quercus). © Jim Asher, Butterfly Conservation
Purple hairstreak butterfly (Favonius quercus). It’s hard to see because it spends most of its time in the upper leaf canopy feeding on honeydew. © Jim Asher, Butterfly Conservation

Invertebrate surveys are carried out using a variety of methods including pitfall traps for ground invertebrates, malaise traps for flying insects, and light traps for nocturnal fliers.

Continue reading “Reviewing a new record in the Wildlife Garden | UK Wildlife”

Posted on

A big welcome to our new trainees | Identification Trainers for the Future

Welcome to the Museum’s Identification Trainers for the Future project! This exciting new project centers around 15 work-based traineeship positions that will be hosted at the Museum and has been designed to address the growing skills gap in species identification in the UK. We will be doing this by targeting species groups where there is a lack, or loss, of ID skills in biological recording.

Our first group of trainees started with us this month, having come through a very competitive selection process, and were selected from over 400 applications. Choosing our first cohort has meant we have had to make some difficult decisions: certainly by the standard of the 25 we invited to selection day back in January, there are some very capable and enthusiastic people out there, with everyone who came along performing extremely well. Hopefully that, of course, means great things for UK biodiversity and biological recording!

Our first trainees taking part in the Identification Trainers for the Future project
Our first trainees taking part in the Identification Trainers for the Future project
L-R: Sally Hyslop, Michael Waller, Katy Potts, Anthony Roach and Chloe Rose

Sally, Katy, Michael, Chloe and Anthony will be introducing themselves in their own blog posts which will appear here over the next few weeks, so I will save mentioning more about their backgrounds here. They have a very busy year in front of them getting involved in our work in the Angela Marmont Centre for UK Biodiversity as well as working with our specialist curation teams and helping out at Field Studies Council centres across the country.

They will be building their own species identification skills through a wide range of workshops, field visits and private study and later on we will be looking at building their communication and teaching skills so they can pass on to others what they have learnt, which is the priniciple purpose of our new project. In the mean time they will also be out and about at various Museum events throughout the year, and we will be reporting back on those too as soon as we can.

For now that leaves me only needing to say a big welcome to all our trainees, I look forward to working with you over the next 12 months!

Steph West
Project Manager – Identification Trainers for the Future

The ID Trainers for the Future project is sponsored through the Heritage Lottery Fund’s Skills for the Future programme and is supported by the Field Studies Council and National Biodiversity Network Trust. For more information, see our website.