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Warwickshire Dragonfly Atlas - Recording Information Page
The atlas of the distribution of dragonflies and damselflies of Warwickshire is currently published only on this web site. The expectation is that the Atlas will be published in booklet form by Warwick Museum within the next two years. The Atlas is only as good as the records it is based on. Currently (February 2005), the records used are those supplied to the Institute of Terrestrial Ecology for the Atlas of the dragonflies of Britain and Ireland (up to about 1990) together with records sent to the Warwickshire Museum and Peter Reeve for the period 1990-2004. Peter has entered these into a computer database especially designed for recording dragonflies, the British Dragonfly Society (BDS) Darter package. If you send in new records of dragonflies during the year you will receive (hopefully by the end of April in the following year) a report of your records in the Darter database. It will be helpful if you check these against your field notes and let Peter know if any are in error. Also, if you expect such a report and have not received one by May the following year please let Peter know. All the records for Warwickshire go to the Warwickshire Biological Records Centre at Warwick Museum, the National Dragonfly Recording Network co-ordinated by the BDS. The BDS sends the data on to the National Biodiversity Network Gateway web site hosted by the Institute of Terrestrial Ecology. The web address of this site is: http://212.219.37.112. The casual visitor to the NBN web site can interrogate databases for different groups of organisms (not just dragonflies) and produce 10km square dot distribution maps for different species. More privileged levels of access to the data are available on request. The data are a valuable resource available to help in the conservation and study of dragonflies. It will become even more valuable over future years as more records are acquired. So, of course, more records are required for Warwickshire. If you still have records for 1990-2004 it is not too late to send them to Peter Reeve. Also, please make a point of recording what you see in 2005. When sending records of dragonflies to Peter Reeve please try and supply them in the form and with as much of the information requested as is possible. It makes records much more valuable and, importantly, easy to enter into the Darter database program. However, do not be inhibited from sending in records even if all the following information cannot be supplied. Ideally and whenever possible please use the Warwickshire Odonata Record Form. It will help ensure the right information is supplied. And please supply your records in the following form: 1. All the records for a particular site together. Do not group your records by other criteria, e.g. species. 2. Give as a location a name marked on the OS map. It can be qualified with a local name if necessary. 3. Give a national grid reference for the site. At least a 6-figure reference please, 8-figure references welcome too. 4. On a large site try to give a grid reference for different sub-sites. For example, Kingsbury Water Park is about 3 km in extent and significant variations in fauna can be expected across the site. 5. Give the date and group the records for a particular date together. That is do not put down the species name for a site followed by a list of dates. 6. List the species seen. Either English or scientific names are okay. 7. Try to estimate numbers. For guidance, Darter allocates numbers as follows: A-1, B-2 to 5, C-6 to 20, D-21 to 100, E-100 to 500, F-500+. Remember it is an estimate. 8. Try to give information on activity and life cycle together with numbers. That is: Adult (Ad), Copulating Pairs (Co), Ovipositing (Ov), Larva (La), Exuvia (Ex), Pre-flight Emergent (Em). This information is very important in assessing the likelihood of breeding at a site. 9. Whenever possible collect exuvia being careful to keep a record of when and where collected. Do not worry if you cannot identify them, they can be passed on to someone more expert. Note, that items highlighted must be supplied but please try and give the information requested in 7 and 8 too.
Remember, by supplying your records in the form
requested they can be rapidly entered into the database and be used to
update
the Warwickshire Atlas quickly. Send records to:
Peter Reeve, WDG
co-ordinator, Or email: peteratreeve60dotuklinuxdotnet
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A special Warwickshire Odonata Record
Form has been produced. A filled example is shown on the left. It is
based on that for Hertfordshire produced by Christine Shepperson - to
whom thanks are given. A PDF copy can be down loaded and printed from 