Woodlife

Techy Lists

The first of January is traditionally when bird-watchers reset their lists and start the year over with their new bird sightings. A line is drawn under the year and lists are compared with previous years. Boulmer Birder makes reference to this in recent posts.

Although I’m not a “birder” in the true sense, I do like to keep records of any sightings during the year. With a renewed interest in Bushcraft, I’ve extended my lists in recent years to include wildflowers and fungi, particularly with a view to seeing what medicinal or edible properties they have. This is an area I’m quite weak on at the moment and hope to improve. I get satisfaction in identifying something I’ve never seen before and entering it on the database as a “first-sighting.” This year wasn’t the best year for these first sights, but I did see my first Snow bunting and a handful of newly identified wildflowers.

I still use my hard copy notebooks or journals to record sightings and facts (more often when I come back from a trip) but for ease of reference I’ve developed a techy-type solution for recording what I’ve seen. This enables me to quickly review sightings, where and when I saw them and any other relevant information. This is primarily for my own benefit and enjoyment, but I also use it to provide data for our local wildlife group, which feeds into the county wildlife trust.

I’ve developed this database slightly this year to include photos I’ve taken of sightings (if I took a photo that is.) This makes for a reasonable reference system. This database is build around Microsoft’s Access database system and although I’m in no way a techy type programmer and it might seem a little primitive to hard core database builders, it serves its purpose.

Bucks meet weekend

I’m off to Buckinghamshire tomorrow to meet up with the folks in that area for a weekend meet. As usual a pretty full schedule of events has been planned and I’ll post what happened next week. Weather? The last 3 events have seen freezing temperatures; a storm, high winds and torrential rain. The weekend forecast is 6 to 8C day and -1 to 4C night; rain Friday, sunny Saturday and Sunday; 12 – 15 mph westerly winds. Hah! Veritably tropical – but I’ll still pack my wool blanket!

Thanks for the visit.

Pablo.