Useful resources

The internet has allowed us new and veteran wildlife enthusiasts to expand our knowledge and identify all our exciting finds.  There has been a significant increase in the breadth of identification resources compared to available print resources; even insects and other understudied groups have plenty of resources floating around on the web.  Reliable keys and resources can be tricky to locate so here is a list of my favourite resources arranged by taxonomic Order (most of these are insect-orientated!).  At the bottom of this list are some places to add your records such as iRecord or your Local Environmental Records Centre (click here to discover yours).

Member organisations (often have citizen science projects and training days)
  • The Wildlife Trusts have branches in each local region and run training and work-party days (search for your local Trust branch here).
  • BugLife is an invertebrate charity (yes, including worms to jellyfish and earwigs to snails) with lots of ongoing conservation projects and also run training events.  They have had lots of conservation successes are excellent at public engagement on social media and at outreach events.
  • Amateur Entomologist's Society is a volunteer-run group aiming to 'promote the study to entomology, especially amongst amateurs and the younger generation'.  They have several regular publications for members and an Annual Exhibition and Trade Fair (usually at Kempton Park Race Course).
  • Field Studies Council is a charity aiming to educate and get people outdoors.  They have several field centres across the UK.  BioLinks is one of their projects from 2018-2022 for identification and recording of invertebrates.  From this project they have an amazing diversity of courses to choose from, resources, and Virtual Meet Ups and Natural History Live online talks.  The FSC have great fold-out guides and books for UK wildlife and habitats, e.g., plants, birds, insects, fungi, mammals, amphibians, reptiles, GIS, surveys, marine and freshwater species, lichens
  • British Entomological and Natural History Society is another British society and they have options to help identify insects.  BENHS also have an annual exhibition in November.

Identification resources 
Some are European (don't worry as we share quite a few species across the Channel and Google Translate often automatically translates these pages).

General resources and websites

ANIMALS

General invertebrates - non-insects listed later

Insects

Coleoptera (beetles)

Dermaptera (earwigs)

Dictyoptera (cockroaches)

Diptera (flies)

Hemiptera (true bugs)

Hymenoptera - my favourites, especially the cuddly fluff balls

Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths)

Neuroptera, Mecoptera, and Megaloptera (lacewings, scorpionflies, alderflies)

Odonata (dragonflies and damselflies)

Orthoptera (grasshoppers, bush-crickets, and crickets)

Psycoptera (barkflies)

Thysanoptera (always thrips, never a thrip!)

Riverflies (Ephemeroptera (mayflies), Trichoptera (caddisflies), and Plecoptera (stoneflies))

Other invertebrates

Annelida (worms)

Arachnida (spiders and other eight-legged creatures, not octopus or squid though!)

Woodlice

Archaeognatha

Gastropods (slugs and snails)

Myriapoda (Diplopoda and Chilopoda, millipedes and centipedes)

Vertebrates

Birds

Herpetofauna (reptiles and amphibians)

Mammals

PLANTS and FUNGI

Plants
Fungi

Recording

Once you have identified your find, biological recording is important.  Your records can be used in several ways; to keep a record or map where you have found wildlife; or scientifically.  Citizen science (see below) and other projects can also use your data to map changes in species distributions and populations.  For example, invasive species like Rhododendron ponticum, or declining native species.
  • iRecord is a great way to record your finds in the UK but more specific Recording Schemes exist too and are listed in the identification links below
  • NBN Atlas allows you to see species distributions in the UK, and NBN Atlas has some recording tools and resources
  • GBIF is a sort of equivalent to NBN for global species distribution records and data can be downloaded here
  • I use UK Grid Reference Finder to translate between Latitude-Longitude, UK Grid References, Eastings-Northings, and What3Words 
  • I use the OS Locate to record GPS for my findings when I am in the field - some phone cameras or digital cameras have GPS you could enable too

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