#623: Big Butterfly Count

The Big Butterfly Count is now underway. Organised by the Butterfly Conservation charity, this is an annual Citzen Science opportunity for students. 

This starts in mid July - some schools will still be working, but this may need to be set as a holiday (or perhaps a pre-task for those who will be starting their GCSE courses in the following September - or between Years 10 and 11)

We will be aiming to produce a resource of this nature - a sort of summer preparation pack of activities to help introduce some key natural history skills for students so they can get up to speed with what to expect.

Download a butterfly ID check sheet here. (PDF download)

I'll be taking part between now and the end date in August.

#546: RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch

This takes place this coming weekend.

Make sure that you take part in this huge citizen science event. Just give up an hour of your weekend to sit there with a cup of tea and see which birds land in your garden.

At the time of posting around 400 000 people / families have registered to take part.

Come and join us!

#525: Bugs Matter 2025 results

The annual Bugs Matter survey results are out.

This draws its data from the bugs that are splattered on license plates after car journeys. The paper templates I used to use have been replaced by a digital version with before and after images.

In years past, a journey would have resulted in a lot of insects that would need to be cleaned off windscreens.

Terrifyingly, the loss of those insects is a sign of deep problems for food chains and ecosystems generally.

Headline summary:

Thanks to all the citizen scientists who took part in 2025, we can now share the shocking results discovered thanks to Bugs Matter.

The 2025 Bugs Matter findings, which are published in a report released by Kent Wildlife Trust and Buglife (Bugs Matter Summary Report 2025), show that the number of flying insects sampled on vehicle number plates across the UK has fallen by a staggering 59% in just 5 years. Analysis of records from more than 25,000 journeys shows an alarming annual average decline in bug splats of 19%, since the survey began in 2021. These findings are consistent with research which has widely reported declining trends in insect populations globally.

#469: Big Butterfly Count 2025

This week is the Big Butterfly Count.

Help out Butterfly Conservation.

Download your free ID chart.  These are available in several languages.

Find a sunny spot - the weather has changed a little, but we should still get some sun, and then send in your observations over a 15 minute period.

#465: Bugs Matter Survey - take part

Until the end of September you can take part in the annual Bugs Matter survey to measure the presence of insects. This uses a smartphone app now, rather than a paper template which used to be the case. Contribute to this citizen science initiative.

The Bugs Matter citizen science survey is an important initiative measuring insect splats on vehicle number plates as a marker of insect abundance. In previous survey years, with the valuable contributions of citizen scientists across the UK, we have made significant strides in understanding the challenges facing our insect populations.

This year, we need your help, once again, to build on our knowledge and make our impact even greater. Sharing the findings from your journeys will help us understand more about our insect populations, as growing evidence highlights their declines on a global scale.

Your participation in this nature survey is vital for us to monitor population trends, address causes of insect loss, halt and reverse them.

This is how the survey works:

 

And here's why it matters...

#367: Rivers' Trust App - Citizen Science

Help out the Rivers Trust - the rivers need all of our help at the moment.... 

🤳YOU can help #rivers this weekend, and it couldn't be easier.

Join Rivers Trust Ambassador @Al_Humphreys and take part in #BigRiverWatch. Survey a river to help us better understand the health of our water.

Just download the app & record what you see! https://t.co/G0Ru3rCZY5 pic.twitter.com/fxeJM9CBfz

— The Rivers Trust (@theriverstrust) September 6, 2024

#328: NENP: 'Weather and Seasons'

The National Education Nature Park (NENP) is making good progress. 

Over 1000 schools are signed up now, although that means there are many thousands still to sign up. 

🌤️ The National Education Nature Park's 'Weather and Seasons: Explore' activity encourages students to observe and compare the four seasons in the UK, helping them understand the impact of various aspects of our lives.

Learn about this free resource 👉 https://t.co/8JwbOWp331 pic.twitter.com/kTntneAKRn

— RGS-IBG Schools (@RGS_IBGschools) March 9, 2024

The Weather and Seasons activity is worth checking out.  It's designed for KS1

It will be interesting to see where the National Education Nature Park and Climate Awards fit in with wider developments of the GCE Natural Histoty.

#313: Lichens and Gravestones

Following a previous post from April.

This Guardian article describes a Church of England project.

It is a Citizen Science project.

The article includes the following really useful information:

Graves are a haven for lichen, with more than 700 of the 2,000 British species having been recorded in English churchyards and cemeteries so far. According to surveys by the church, many sites have well more than 100 species on the stonework, trees and in the grassland.

This summer, the church is running a nature count in burial grounds across the country. 

Between the 8th and the 16th of June, they are asking people to visit their local graveyard, record which species they find and send them in.

A lichen is a complex life form, made up of a stable symbiotic association between a fungus and algae or cyanobacteria. They are very important as habitat for small invertebrates, and they stabilise soil pH as well as carrying out water and nutrient capture and cycling. They play a crucial role in the environment but many of their preferred habitats, including ancient trees, are under threat.

In order to take part:

To submit records during the week, the easiest way is to use a free app called iNaturalist and join the Beautiful Burial Grounds project. This doesn't appear to be ready quite yet.

The app enables you to take a photo and it helps with identification.

I've got this app myself.

See the previous project outcomes.

A useful guide to Lichens has been produced and can be downloaded as a PDF.

Top image: Gravestones in Lexham Churchyard, Alan Parkinson - shared under CC license.

#272: Mammal Mapper

The Mammal Mapper website is produced by the Mammal Society.

There are some useful videos to go alongside the app.

This would make a good opportunity to get involved in citizen science.

#258: The Big Plastic Count - starts tomorrow

Citizen Science projects are a good thing to connect students with as the specification is revealed and the content is built around it.

Plastic is a pervasive element of all natural environments, and has negative impacts on natural history - in particular by affecting wildlife which ingests it, or can be affected by its existence.

This starts tomorrow. 

Sign up and get your survey recording form to stick by the bin.

It's the counting that counts.

#204: The RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch 2024

This takes place between the 26th and 28th of January 2024 for homes, and schools are also welcome to take part of course.

It's important to both take part in, but also encourage all students to take part in this important citizen science project in 2024. 

I've registered for the event, and chosen to receive a digital guide rather than a printed guide.

Across the UK, over half a million people took part in Big Garden Birdwatch 2023, counting a whopping 9.1 million birds! House Sparrows took the top spot, but counts of these chirpy birds are down by 57% compared to the first Birdwatch in 1979. In fact, we’ve lost 38 million birds from UK skies in the last 60 years. 

With birds facing so many challenges, it’s more important than ever to get involved in the Birdwatch. Every bird you do – or don’t – count will give us a valuable insight into how garden birds are faring.

Here are the results for 2023

#202: Worms are important

Worms aren't important are they?

One might imagine so, but some of the early naturalists including Gilbert White and Charles Darwin understood the vital importance of them for soil health and other factors, including the incorporation of organic material into the soil, aeration and other benefits.

Earthworms are described by the Natural History Museum as heroes.

Check out details of the former NHM project called Earthworm Watch. This was a Citizen Science project.

Data collection is now closed, but the results can be viewed.

Hopefully one result of studying the GCSE Natural History will be cohorts of students who appreciate the small things a little more. This is not always about the bigger aspects of Natural History but the smaller elements that contribute to the whole.

My Geographical Association Presidential theme was Everyday Geographies, and this is another example of where small everyday actions can make a large cumulative difference. I'm thinking of developing some support around the idea of "everyday natural history".

“The team found that earthworms are responsible for nearly 7% of global grain harvests, such as rice, wheat, and corn. …In sub-Saharan Africa, where many soils are depleted in nutrients and fertilizer is scarce, earthworms boost grain production by 10%.” https://t.co/hWwt2VHGqi

— David Wallace-Wells (@dwallacewells) December 19, 2023

#162: World Jellyfish Day 2023

The 3rd of November is World Jellyfish Day. 

Happy #WorldJellyfishDay! 🎉

Which jellyfish have you seen floating through our waters? 💙 https://t.co/JqaZmA5PA9 pic.twitter.com/SjBbkJLF8U

— The Wildlife Trusts (@WildlifeTrusts) November 3, 2023

It's a special day to celebrate the mysterious creatures and think of ways to keep them safe all over the world.

These strange animals are made up of mostly water, have no centralised brains, blood or bones.

Conservationists are hoping to raise awareness of this unique creature for the role they play in the environment and their potential to help medical research or even be a sustainable food source.

And while you may think of the unusual sea creatures as mainly being far away from home, sightings of jellyfish in UK seas and on our beaches have gone up by 32% according to research done by the Marine Conservation Society.

Jellyfish were around before dinosaurs?

They've been around for more than 500 million years - scientists discovered this in 2005 when they found a 505-million-year-old jellyfish fossil.

Source

Their mostly transparent bodies, wiry tentacles, and lack of bodily organs confounded early scientists so much that they couldn’t even classify these guys — back when categories were only plants, animals, and humans. Jellyfish weren’t plants but they didn’t fit the specified mold of animals either. The world simply dubbed (classified) them as ‘incomplete’ and didn’t bother investigating further, at least until the microscope was invented. Many such ‘incomplete’ organisms didn’t neatly fit into any category naturalists created, and they were forced to reexamine their categories and come up with new definitions for each.

However, it wasn’t until Charles Darwin proposed his theory of evolution in 1859 — “all living things show a variation in physical traits over time as a process of natural selection” — that the jellyfish got some recognition.

A Marine Conservation Society guide on how to identify jellyfish.

Report your jellyfish sightings here.

#145: The Big Seaweed Search

The Natural History Museum has a citizen science project called the Big Seaweed Search running.

Home to a particularly high diversity, the UK is a special place for seaweeds, with over 650 species.

Understanding more about them is critical to protecting marine environments. Seaweed creates habitat where fish, invertebrates, birds, and marine mammals find food and shelter.

We know comparatively little about the abundance and distribution of seaweed species. So it is important to record them and monitor how they change over time.

Your observations will give us a better picture of how seaweeds are affected by:rising sea temperature
the arrival and spread of non-native species of seaweed
ocean acidification (the sea becoming more acidic as a result of absorbing carbon dioxide from the air)

#77: Saltmarsh App

Saltmarshes are an interesting ecosystem and the UK has quite a few of them.

There is a Saltmarsh app available to download.

It is a citizen science app inviting people to submit surveys.

It has a useful section which shows saltmarsh plants to help identify them. This will be helpful for anyone going on, or preparing for a field visit to a saltmarsh.

When I taught 'A' level geography in a previous school in West Norfolk, we used to have an annual trip to the coast for fieldwork. I think those schools who would beable to get to a saltmarsh should consider visiting one. 

There is a good opportunity to test a whole range of fieldwork skills in these environments, and they carry a range of risks to assess as well.

The website, from which the app can be downloaded has a useful guide to saltmarshes.

You can identify the locations of your nearest Saltmarsh using the MAGiC app (see the separate posts on this interactive map to see how it works). I've added the layer below and zoomed into the area of the Wash.

#62: Big Butterfly Count 2023

The Big Butterfly Count 2023 started recently and runs through to early August. My neighbour's Buddleia bush has been very busy with butterflies. My mum always calls this a "butterfly bush" and they definitely like it.

The #BigButterflyCount 2023 has officially started! 🦋

Our butterflies and moths need our help more than ever. This is why we are urging everyone to get out for the Count to help us conserve them! 💚

Get involved 👉 https://t.co/mtv6gZ0dPN#SaveButterflies #MothsMatter pic.twitter.com/6vsjWInxmd

— Butterfly Conservation (@savebutterflies) July 14, 2023

Once the new GCSE Natural History launches, one would hope that there would be links to this sort of activity provided in a calendar of events so that teachers can't miss out on some of the big days and events that are spread throughout the year.

David Attenborough introduces the count, as inspiration for young people perhaps to get involved.

I completed the count earlier and submitted my data. Here's one of my images of some local butterflies as well. Remember that we are putting together a folder / album of CC licensed images for you to use in your own powerpoints when the time comes.

Image: Alan Parkinson, shared under CC license

#49: You're invited to a different kind of 'Stag Do'

One of the resources that I am putting together is something on oppoertunities to get involved in Citizen Science. There are quite a few of these spread through the year, and teachers could perhaps create a 'loyalty card' which allows students to earn points through engagement with them.

Wildlife charity, the People’s Trust for Endangered Species’ (PTES) is looking for volunteers across Britain for its annual ‘Great Stag Hunt’ survey, to discover where endangered stag beetles are living and where they most need help.

Stag beetles were once widespread but due to habitat loss they’re now declining and have even become extinct in some parts of Britain and Western Europe. To prevent that from further happening PTES is calling for nature lovers, families, and individuals to help this summer by recording all sightings of male and female stag beetles, and their larvae (large, white grubs), online at:

  www.ptes.org/gsh

Stag beetles are easy to spot – they’re the UK’s largest land beetles and the males are instantly recognisable with their antler like jaws. From late May into July these iconic insects emerge from the ground in search of mates, and are usually spotted flying around gardens, parks and allotments on warm summer evenings. They can also be seen on walls and warm tarmac surfaces in urban areas, and in other green spaces too such as woodland edges, hedgerows and traditional orchards.

Laura Bower, Conservation Officer at PTES says: “Last year almost 10,000 sightings were recorded by thousands of volunteers, giving us a real insight into where their range is, which is crucial for the species’ long-term survival. More help is always needed though, so whether you’re out in the garden, dog walking in a local park, on the school run or even walking to the pub, keep your eyes peeled for these beautiful beetles and tell us about any you see. You don’t need to be a beetle expert or have taken part before, as PTES has a free ‘beetle ID’ guide to help anyone new to the survey to help them tell the differences between stag beetles and other insects.”

To take part in the Great Stag Hunt 2023, for top tips on creating the perfect log pile, or to find out more about stag beetles, please visit: stagbeetles.ptes.org

#45: Royal Horticultural Society projects

There have been two projects started by the Royal Horticultural Society relatively recently which may be of interest to schools. 

If I was to teach the new specification I think I would want to make it as active as possible, with students involved in practical actions to help natural history in some way, whether throuth citizen science, or through nature conservation projects.

The first one was from November 2022

It is a partnership with the Natural History Museum and the DfE.

The second was announced recently, and relates to hedges.

This explores their link to greener schools.

This is a two year project.

Image: Alan Parkinson - shared under CC license