Wildlife Map

[bob]

Hi Rob

Love your new wildlife map http://www.tflvolunteer.org/php/wildlife.php?action=map

There are a few memorable sightings from around Glen Affric e.g. red squirrel, osprey, pine marten, ptarmigan - not necessarily from workweeks - that I still have in my head and could put approximate Grid Refs and dates to. Would you be able to/ want to add them to your database? For some species like black grouse and red squirrel some of us know where they can be seen every year in certain months - should we map these?

If so, how would you like them reported - via the Wildlife board perhaps? I'm a little cautious about putting accurate locations for some protected species - is there anything that's considered "sensitive" or can we go ahead and map everything?

[RobP]

Hi Bob,
At the moment I can only map wildlife reported on the work records. I don't have anywhere to hold other sightings.
I'm inclined to wait for the "coming soon" wildlife record sheets from TFL and then design a proper system around those. We could complete the new record sheet (online I hope) for anything we want to record.

We could certainly use the wildlife board for tips on good places and times to see interesting species where we thought people could do that without causing problems. That's a good idea. It may influence peoples choice of work weeks "which work weeks would give me good chance of seeing an eagle?"

You raise a good question about sensitve records - I hadn't thought of that.
The threats I can think of are egg thieves and disturbance, which suggests we wouldn't want to publicise nesting sites especially for raptors, or Black Grouse lekking sites.

I don't think we have a problem at the moment as the positions are work sites rather than the exact spot anything was seen. So even if we recorded a lek sighting on Corrimony, the position on the map just says where we were working which wouldn't be on a lek.

Rob