News Archive 2011

January 2012
Records Database Growing Like Topsy
Liza Glesener our Database Development Officer has now been hard at work for nearly three months and excellent progress is being made. Much ground work establishing management procedure and for instance how submitted records would be validated, had to be accomplished before work could start on assembling any records. It is therefore good news that as of the 13th January she had a total of 12,802 records in the database and still more promised.
I know that writing up records is not the most exciting of natural history activities; but I hope that you will feel encouraged to keep Liza busy making sure that she is well supplied with your past records before a new year of field work is upon us.

Records should be sent to Liza Glesener (records@ohbr.org.uk). You will find further information the Recording section.

If you have any queries or need any help please contact either Liza or Christine Johnson (admin@ohbr.org.uk)

November 2011
Database Development Officer
Liza Glesener was appointed as the Project Database Development Officer at the the beginning of October. Since graduating in 2006, Liza has taken part in a variety of projects, both as a volunteer and on a professional basis, in the Outer Hebrides and abroad. Although a native of Luxembourg she is now based in Benbecula where she has worked as a freelance biologist and science writer since early 2009.

The role of the Database Development Officer is to create the biological records database and to establish all the procedures and management policies to enable the system to function efficiently. Over the next 6 months, Liza will be contacting local recorders to ask them to join the project and submit their records, and establishing links with other recording groups, environemental organisations and research groups. Liza is an enthusiastic member of the team and was involved in the recent Biological Recording Activity Day at Loch Stiapabhat Local Nature Reserve.

October 2011
Collection of Terrestrial Molluscs

Samples of snails from South Uist machair made by research student Karen Varnham from Bristol University, have now been identified by Adrian Norris of the Conchological Society of Great Britain & Ireland. The molluscs, together with other invertebrates, were collected from a series of sample plots on the machair as part of a study of the diet of hedgehogs and their effect on the invertebrate fauna. This is the first set of records from a University study to be included in the database and we are pleased that the collection of shells has been accepted by Leeds City Museums. The records of beetles from the same study, identified by entomologists at the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff, will also been included in our database.