MACROMOTHS ANNUAL REPORT 2009
Marc Taylor
Click here to download a copy of the report
In opening I would like to thank my predecessor Mr. John d’Arcy to whom we are grateful for his custodianship of macro moth records over so many years. When John announced his decision to step down on May 22nd to Purgle, Jane and I, our first response was to ask if he would stay on and allow me to introduce more contemporary recording techniques. Sadly he declined acknowledging the prevalence of IT in the role of recording, something to which he was applying himself, but felt it was for others for whom IT was more readily understood to continue with.
I have for some time been entering county records into MapMate, but past numbers seemed very low. To give some idea of the conundrum two recorders Mrs. Ingrid Powell and Mr. Wayne Clinch, friends who only began to trap from 2008 have just presented me with 2300 records. This at a time when Wiltshire has presented Moth counts with 38500 records representing at least 25 years of recording. I reasonably estimate that by April 31st when I have to offer up any final submissions to the National Moth Atlas Wiltshire will than have 50000+ records in our data set. This enlargement is set to increase year on year and is derived by using the existing recording methodologies matched with the most appropriate IT technologies. Simply the who, what, where and when will not change, but storing paper based submissions up until autumn before submission could not be continued. Having reviewed Wiltshire’s practice and consulting widely, not only of Lepidopteran records but most groups at both county and national level, I have proposed some changes as follows below. Before that I must state that I make no demands of recorders, it is purely voluntary. However there are ways of supplying records which allow for maximized accuracy and minimize the collation, validation and verification needed to have a healthy and accurate data set, that will not only be accessed by existing users, but for those who have studies and uses we cannot imagine.
The suggested way of proceeding:
1. You record the who, what, where and when in your preferred way. We will suggest the use of our Excel spreadsheet or even a word table set up to replicate the Excel layout as this allows for an almost seamless transfer into MapMate. I will meet and introduce those wary of this development, but to date many are saying the biggest issue was others prejudice and when they used it was very straight forward.
2. Records can be submitted on whatever frequency you wish (Any species which need to be verified by an ‘authority’ must have appropriate detail present. This should be as swiftly as possible to maintain the specimen’s health, where a dissection is needed advice will be provided to undertake killing the specimen in an accepted fashion). We would suggest that unless you record anything which the spreadsheet indicates needs further check, then quarterly submission would help manage the task of importing records.
3. All records will be acknowledged and if necessary further information will be sought promptly to allow for acceptance or declination.
4. Any negotiated requests on site confidentiality will be honored and an agreed way of recording that species will be used to allow its inclusion whilst satisfying the recorders terms.
5. Working parties are being invited to be set up to identify a number of key points to strengthen and support the best recording practice possible, these include
a. Historic record retrieval and validation
b. Identifying a ‘County list’ of moths
i. Where visual identification will not suffice
ii. By vitue of their status – abundance and distribution
All this work and development has only been able to have begun at the request of and supported by many people to numerous to individually mention. I have had at least three widely announced meetings throughout Wiltshire to meet recorders and listen to their ideas for how we can reinvigorate moth recording. We are trapping in Savernake Forest on a regular basis to help the Forestry Commisions to understand how its work is affecting biodiversity. We are actively supporting the Garden Moth Scheme and national Moth Night. Trapping at Stanton Fitzwarren Park will become a regular feature. A number of schools throughout the county ask us to trap in their grounds and use the catch to support the children’s studies on the environment. There is much scope for recording and once again using IT has been a boon by helping:
1. Create a database of recorders, soon a ‘phone tree’ will act to support this
2. Facilitate ‘dynamic’ field trip listing, if it rains one message can reach all signed up right up to the point of departure. If migration or notable species become of interest extremely swiftly organized trapping can be undertaken, often within hours.
3. Digital photography and the net have meant records have been mailed upon catching and identification has been achieved when before there was no county based authority, we now have species specialist ‘on call’. I make no apology for not listing any moths this time. I only began on May 22nd, right away had to organize the last two years records for all wishing to offer them for the provisional National Moth atlas. This work was presumed to have begun, it has not. Wiltshire was almost entirely represented by a white hole on all national maps. We have been working with 8 months notice to ‘harvest’ records which by virtue of them not being paper based had not been forwarded but which we knew were out there. The suggested time span was two years from all contributors, if this is achieved we then role back another two years and so on. Then we move onto 70000 records from Rothamsted trapping, were aggregation is very common and the recorder is not appropriately recorded. It has been a heck of a baptism, trying to bring our stand of recording forward to realize contemporary methodologies and requirements.
