CBDC recently wrote about turning a wildlife observation into a wildlife record for LANSS (Cumbria Land and Nature Skills Service): https://www.lanss.uk/news/wildlife-recording-what-is-it-and-why-bother. We at CBDC know that lots of people observe wildlife but turning that observation into a much needed and incredibly useful wildlife record is often missing either because people aren’t aware that such records are being collected or because the right tools aren’t available. Our mission at CBDC is to raise awareness of the importance of recording wildlife and to make the tools that are available for this purpose more widely available. We want to turn every observation into a record – or almost every one!
We’re launching Challenge 365 to encourage more wildlife observers to become wildlife recorders. We want to show how easy it is to turn a ‘I’ve just seen a…’ into a record that can be used by researchers, ecologists, planners, developers, educators and so many more people. These records help to show how biodiverse our county is, highlights hotspots for particular species, and provides a much needed baseline so we can detect changes due to climate change or land management practices. Wildlife recording need only take a few seconds of your day and yet will contribute meaningful data for decades to come.
Challenge 365 is all about recording the everyday species – the birds that visit your garden, the trees that you pass on the way to your favourite café, that annoying clump of nettles that just won’t go away by the garden gate.
We’ve created a recording form that you can keep open in your web browser to complete each day. If you prefer, you can download the Challenge 365 spreadsheet or if you have an iNaturalist account, join the Challenge 365 project. Whatever approach you decide to use, do sign up for the challenge first so that we know you are taking part – and see if you succeed in recording an observation each day for one calendar year!
Find out more at the Challenge 365 webpage and sign up NOW to start recording on 1st January 2025.
