RECORDS, RECORDERS AND RECORDING

An exciting and important part of the Club's work is supporting the gathering of records of flora and fauna species in the County. Your records are a vital part of this - please click here to download a single-species record card or here to download a multi-species Excel form to tell us what you have seen.

To maintain the reliability of records, there are expert County Recorders for different groups, from mosses to woodlice. Information about possible sightings should always be submitted to the appropriate Recorder for confirmation - there are instructions in the Excel form, whilst the Recorders can also be contacted using the email link or other contact details below. All records are usually also sent from the Recorder to the Orkney Wildlife Information and Records Centre, (currently OWIRC is not functioning but should be re-established in the future and your records will be added when this happens).

There are many national recording schemes collecting records, but please remember that records submitted to these rarely find their way back to the local records centre, meaning potentially important and useful records are not available locally. Please, therefore, always remember to submit your findings to the local recorders, even if you are sending them to other recording schemes as well.

There is a full list of Recorders and the taxa they cover in the latest edition of the Field Club's Bulletin, the Orkney Naturalist but all those listed below can be readily contacted by email or telephone.

• Algae - marine (seaweeds) - Prof. Martin Wilkinson, 07720192729

• Algae - freshwater - VACANT

• Amphibians and reptiles - Keith Fairclough

• Bats - Tim Dean

• Beetles - Brian Ribbands

• Birds - Steve Dudley

• Bumblebees, solitary bees, wasps & ants - John Crossley

• Butterflies and moths - Helen Aiton

• Caddis flies, mayflies and stoneflies - Ross Andrew

• Centipedes and millipedes - Helen Aiton

• Cetaceans - Emma Neave-Webb

• Cnidaria (sea anemones, jellyfish, hydroids, comb jellies and siphonophores) - Penny Martin

• Crustacea (marine) - VACANT

• Dragonflies and Damselflies  - Graeme Walker

• Earthworms, leeches etc - Keith Fairclough

• Echinodermata (Sea Urchins, Starfish etc) - Gareth Squire

• Fish - Ashleigh Kitchiner

• Fungi - VACANT

• Grasshoppers - Lee Shields

• Hoverflies - Barrie Hamill

• Ichneumon parasitic wasps - Alastair Forsyth

• Isopods (Woodlice & relatives) - VACANT

• Lichens - Roger Davies

• Mammals (excepting Bats and Cetaceans) - Brian Ribbands

• Molluscs - marine (sea slugs, cephalopods, shells etc) - Anne Bignall

• Molluscs (marine - shells) - Yvonne Simpson

• Molluscs - terrestrial ( slugs and snails) - VACANT

• Mosses, liverworts & hornworts - John Crossley

• Sawflies - Jenni Stockan

• Slime Moulds - VACANT

• Spiders, pseudoscorpions and harvestmen - Edward Milner

• True Bugs (Hemiptera) - Peter Kirby

• True flies (Diptera) except hoverflies - VACANT

• Vascular Plants & Stoneworts - John Crossley

We are starting to add definitive, up-to-date County Species Lists to this website. Once in place, these will help naturalists recognise whether they may have spotted a rarity which should be reported!

So far lists of the following can be viewed on line:

• Amphibians (Newts, Toads and Frogs)

• Bats (Chiroptera)

• Bryophytes (Mosses and Liverworts)

• Bees, Wasps and Ants

• Cetaceans (Whales and Dolphins)

• Dragonflies and Damselflies (Odonata)

• Fish

• Grasshoppers and Crickets (Orthoptera)

• Lichens

• Reptiles

• Sawflies

• Vascular Plants