PennyGreen
Mon, 21 Dec 2009 05:09:32 -0800
Dear All, A message from our new County Dragonfly Recorder, Graeme Lyons: "I've met many of you already but for those that I have not, I'd just like to say I'm delighted to take up the reins as the new county recorder. My role at the Trust means I'm always very busy in the summer out in the field and spend a lot more time in the office in the winter, so my input will always be seasonal. So, it's come to that time of year when I'd ask you to send in all of this years dragonfly records please. Penny Green will collate the data that will then come to me for validation and any rare or unusual species will be checked by the committee, please send photographs of any rare or unusual records where possible. Please send your records to mailto:pennygr...@sussexwt.org.uk and if you do send photos for the more scarce species, please make sure that they are small files (200kb). One of the things I intend to do in 2010 is set-up regular and standardised monitoring of dragonflies here at Woods Mill to gauge the effectiveness of our wetland management. I hope to use a standard dragonfly transect that, in future years, can be used as demonstration monitoring for those that want to carry out something similar on a site near them. Watch this space! Many thanks for all the recording effort you have put in and I'll take this opportunity to wish you all a Merry Christmas!" I'd like to add something to Graeme's plea for records: We now have 58,473 Sussex dragonfly records on the NBN Gateway (http://www.nbn.org.uk/). The NBN Gateway is a website which pulls all sorts of national and local species datasets together in to one place, and they can be viewed by anyone (although various restrictions are in place to stop the wrong use of the information) so this means that your data is being used to help look at national distribution of species and hopefully being used by decision makers for the benefit of wildlife. You can visit the NBN Gateway to look at different species' distribution in Sussex; this may help you to learn more about what areas of Sussex they inhabit, or to help target under-recorded areas of Sussex. Hopefully you can also see your own dots on the maps! Here's the Scarce Chaser map for Sussex: http://data.nbn.org.uk/interactive/map.jsp?srchSp=NBNSYS0000005638 Have a play around with the maps, and look up different dragonfly species. Please note that the data that we have put on the NBN Gateway doesn't allow users to see the details of the records, it simply shows the data at a 1km resolution. If you ever want more detailed information then you can contact me direct. Best wishes for Christmas and we look forward to seeing you at the Dragonfly field trips in 2010! Penny BDS - Sussex Group secretary Penny Green Species Officer Sussex Biodiversity Record Centre http://sxbrc.org.uk | 01273 497521 Sussex Wildlife Trust is a company limited by guarantee under the Companies Act. Registered in England, Company No. 698851. Registered Charity No. 207005. VAT Registration No. 191 305969. Registered Office: Woods Mill, Henfield, West Sussex BN5 9SD. Telephone 01273 492630