1. Recording wildlife and Bioblitzes
How your sightings can help protect our region’s wildlife

2. Who are we? Paul Stevens ERIC North East Coordinator Katie Frith
& Anne Donnelly
ERIC North East Officers
and a team of fantastic volunteers!
Based at the Great North Museum: Hancock in Newcastle
ERIC is managed by a board made up of wildlife recorders who share their data with us and users of the data

3. What is ERIC North East?
Collate species and habitat data for the region
Make the information accessible to those who need it for nature conservation purposes 3

4. What is ERIC North East?
Encourage more people to log their wildlife sightings
Find and use records that would otherwise be lost
Currently hold over 3.5 million species records 4

5. ERIC’s area of coverage
Part of a network of records centres nationally 5

6. Where does the data come from?
Community groups
Naturalist groups and societies
Organisations like the Wildlife Trust
Many individuals
Without their enthusiasm, we would know far less about the natural world than we do today.

7. What is a wildlife record?
A wildlife record is a documented occurrence of an animal or plant at a location, at a specific point in time by a named person
Every valid record needs:
Species name
Observer name
Date
Location (including grid reference)

8. What is a wildlife record?
From this
To this
The records arrive with us in a variety of different formats (hand written notebooks, ecological reports etc.) and we type them up to standardise them prior to import into our database
To this

9. Easy to search the records
Using maps
By Grid Reference
NZ2244
By type of species
And you can interrogate the database by area, species or taxon.
NZ1234
By species

10. Who uses the information?
683 requests for data to inform planning applications and development
10 requests for ecological data to inform biodiversity and conservation projects across the region
Data supplied to inform 16 academic research projects
Informed the work of 7 local authorities and 1 government agency

11. How is the information used?
Examples of data uses:
Monitor change in species distribution.
Check whether protected species are present on a possible development site
Monitor improvements / decline in species of conservation concern for a specific area

12. How is the information used?
Big Watch Weekend Whale & Dolphin Survey
Result = more comprehensive evidence base for whale, dolphin and porpoise conservation

13. How is the information used?
Buglife B-Lines Project
Analysed habitat data to identify flower-rich pollinator pathways, linking these in with networks in other regions. 

14. Anyone can help protect their local wildlife by recording it!
In your garden or on your way to work
In and around your school?
Families & children

15. What should we record? EVERYTHING! Common or rare
Who knows what could be ‘common’ or rare in 25 years!
Plant, animal, fungus
Or rabbit
Yellow-rumped warbler
Recorded by children taking part in RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch!

16. What should we record? Fields signs count! Molehill Fox scat
Badger latrine
Nests

17. What’s in it for for you?
Easy way to make a real contribution to nature conservation
You don’t need to be an expert!
Help protect your local green spaces
Improve your species identification skills
Lots of public surveys to join in with
It’s good fun!
You don’t need to invest a huge amount of time 17

18. Assistance with recording
There are lots of groups, societies and projects who collect wildlife sightings.
This is fantastic but confusing!

19. What is a Bioblitz? Bioblitzes
“A BioBlitz is a collaborative race to discover as many types of wildlife as possible, within a set location, over a defined time period.”

20. Organising your bioblitz
Why (opportunity for children to learn about wildlife around them)
Where will you hold it (local park, school grounds)
When (Weather, seasonal timings to get the most of it)
What equipment do you need? What are you going to look for?

21. What should we record? EVERYTHING! Common or rare
Who knows what could be ‘common’ or rare in 25 years!
Plant, animal, fungus
Or rabbit
Yellow-rumped warbler
Recorded by children taking part in RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch!

22. What should we record? Fields signs count! Molehill Fox scat
Badger latrine
Nests

23. Identification and surveying...
Theres LOADS of help at hand

24. Equipment
Tools of the trade

25. Equipment

26. Equipment

27. Any questions? www.ericnortheast.org.uk
All of the records shared with ERIC North East will be put to good use
Result: a more comprehensive picture of the wildlife of the region