Pat and Charles Baker are nature lovers who look after Studham Common. Here’s what they have to say about sending in records to the BNHS.

Winter is now with us.  Many of the trees are bare and the frost and wind will soon encourage the remainder of the leaves to fall.  Birds and mammals are the most obvious wildlife active on the Common but there are still smaller creatures about.

This is the time of year when people interested in local natural history push aside the Christmas decorations and sit down at their computers to enter the records of what they have seen during the year.  As members of the Bedfordshire Natural History Society (BNHS) we send our records from the Common and elsewhere to people appointed by the Society as Recorders.  They have specialist knowledge of various groups of animals and plants.  Sadly there are some groups, particularly among insects and other invertebrates, for which there is no local expert.

The Recorders check and collate the records they receive and, if they are happy that the records are correct, send them on to the local biodiversity recording centre in Bedford.  The centre now holds more than 1 million Bedfordshire records.  Records are also passed on to various national databases where they contribute to mapping national changes in species’ distributions helping to understand the reasons for increases or declines of different species.  The BNHS Recorders produce annual reports and at intervals the Society publishes books such as the acclaimed ‘Flora of Bedfordshire’ in 2011.

Extract taken from Friends of Studham Common Newsletter Dec 2013/Jan 2014.