GiGL Life

Book Review: The Meaning of Birds

Book Review: The Meaning of Birds

Written with a warm affection for our avian friends, the book reminds you of all the reasons you too love birds, and puts dozens of familiar and new facts at the forefront of your mind. Barnes is a birder and a story teller, and this book is an entertaining reminder of why observing and interacting with birds is such an important and enduring part of human experience…

Interview, Andy Foy

Interview, Andy Foy

Andy is GiGL’s Systems Manager. He manages the development and maintenance of GiGL data systems and tools. Andy works with the team to streamline data processes and ensure that GiGL datasets are fit for purpose for use by partners, community groups and the public…

It takes a team to create a report

It takes a team to create a report

GiGL’s flagship report, the ecological desktop study, presents a snapshot of the GiGL Partnership’s knowledge of a site or an area. The report is the culmination of a lot of time and effort to collate information about the whole of London; so we wanted to lift the lid on the process of what goes into creating this report…

London Recorders’ Day 2019

London Recorders’ Day 2019

On 2nd November, natural historians, conservationists, educators and data managers of London came together once more; we left the grey skies and wet streets of west London and entered that towering cathedral to nature, the Natural History Museum, for the second annual London Recorders’ Day. GiGL, the Field Studies Council (FSC) Biolinks Project and the Natural History Museum Angela Marmot Centre for UK Biodiversity co-organised and hosted this event following the success of last year. The varied talks and displays discussed the joy of studying nature, skills and careers, diversity and inclusiveness, and the use of biological records in practice…

Book Review: “The London Garden Book A-Z” by Abigail Willis

Book Review: “The London Garden Book A-Z” by Abigail Willis

This book is, more or less, what it says on the cover, an A to Z of London’s Gardens, but with various quirks. As well as listing the gardens that you would expect to find – the sort that would appear as individual sites in our open space database – this book has entries for gardens and types of gardening that are more abstract or dispersed, such as “Guerrilla Gardener”, “Front Gardens” and “Topiary”…

Interview, Eleni Foui

Interview, Eleni Foui

Eleni is GiGL’s Planning Research Officer. She leads on a project designed to understand and support the planning process regarding the use of biodiversity data in Greater London. Eleni will be spending the next 12 months identifying current practices across the capital, defining best practice and developing new resources for Local Planning Authorities…

Joy of Recording: How the skylarks on Warren Farm taught me how to sing

Joy of Recording: How the skylarks on Warren Farm taught me how to sing

“…Like a rocket, the bird shot straight up into the air from the ground. Momentarily hovering before jauntily flying in a large oval shape. Singing like it had accordions for lungs, a warble so beautiful and so loud and then, just before it plummeted to the ground like it had forgotten how to fly, it let out a repeated single note that sounded like the kind of noises my brother and I used to make when firing water pistols at each other. Pew Pew Pew! “It’s a skylark.” I said, tying up the poo bag, my rescue dog grinning up at me. And on we walked…

Interview, Benjamin Town

Interview, Benjamin Town

Ben is GiGL’s Community Officer. He delivers work for community partners and clients. This includes work for members of the public and community groups, as well as carrying out work with students that wish to use GiGL data for research projects…

Interview, Laura Kuurne

Interview, Laura Kuurne

Laura is GiGL’s Database Officer. She delivers work to review, develop and maintain GiGL’s datasets of the capital’s Sites of Importance for Nature Conservation (SINCs) and their citations, open spaces, and habitats…

Joy of Recording

Joy of Recording

…I returned to the UK in 2011, moving into a house boat on a wharf at the junction of the rivers Brent and Thames. One day, while working on a small patch of garden on the wharf’s bank, I noticed a tiny little snail that I hadn’t previously encountered; after making enquiries around the neighbourhood, my landlord told me it was a Thames two-lipped snail (Balea biplicata)…

Interview, Jon Riley

Interview, Jon Riley

GiGL’s Board of Directors are central to our work and our success. Their commitment and expertise helps guide GiGL and keeps us moving forward and developing. Directors are on the front line of biodiversity and open space work in the capital. They are GiGL service users and contribute to our data banks, as well as serving as ambassadors for GiGL….

London Recorders’ Day

London Recorders’ Day

What was the first London Recorders’ Day all about? At its heart was a celebration of the people who care deeply about the wildlife in our capital. Its vision was to showcase the work of individuals, groups and organisations who, through wildlife recording, are making a difference to our knowledge of biodiversity, conservation of species and habitats, and enjoyment of living in London…

Interview, Richard Smith

Interview, Richard Smith

GiGL’s Board of Directors are central to our work and our success. Their commitment and expertise helps guide GiGL and keeps us moving forward and developing. Until recently Richard held the position of Group Head of Environmental Sustainability at VINCI PLC. He joined GiGL’s Board in October 2018…

Interview, Tony Burton

Interview, Tony Burton

GiGL’s Board of Directors are central to our work and our success. Their commitment and expertise helps guide GiGL and keeps us moving forward and developing. Tony joined GiGL’s Board in October 2018. As well as his position of GiGL Director he is Vice Chair of Big Lottery Fund and a trustee for The Conservation Volunteers and Friends of the Earth, amongst others…

Joy of Recording

Joy of Recording

After false starts, and to echoes of the Specials ‘Ghost Town’, I went to the Netherlands in 1980 to find work; there was no work here, especially for a holder of a sociology degree.  I became a gardener in Haarlem, growing bulbs for Wisley and Kew Gardens, then on my return to the UK I began my own gardening business, now run by my son (with some of the same customers)…

NBN Conference 2018

NBN Conference 2018

The 18th National Biodiversity Network (NBN) Conference was held in November. The GiGL team made their way to Nottingham to benefit from two days of talks on the theme of “the NBN in a changing climate”…

Interview, Chloë Smith

Interview, Chloë Smith

Chloë is GiGL’s Partnership Manager. She works with the team on partnership development and oversees service delivery to GiGL’s funding partners as well as core work on datasets and information systems…

Becoming Better Acquainted with Bees

Becoming Better Acquainted with Bees

The GiGL team has a wealth of different expertise. Whilst we don’t generally use our species identification skills on a daily basis, it’s important we have an affinity for the ID requirements essential to accurately record different taxa…

Joy of Recording: fourteen years of data

Joy of Recording: fourteen years of data

My desire for identifying wildlife started at a very young age, sometime between five and seven, when it was usual for me to be found crawling under school huts. A lot of my childhood was spent crawling around looking at invertebrates in my local park in Luton, Bedfordshire where I grew up. However…

Interview, Katharine Davies

Interview, Katharine Davies

Katharine is GiGL’s community officer. She delivers work for members of the public and community groups, as well as carrying out work with students that wish to use GiGL data for research projects. At times she focuses on internal database work and core projects.

Joy of Recording

Joy of Recording

The importance of wildlife recording first dawned on me in my late teens. During the early 1980s, I volunteered, at a Shropshire site called Stoneyhill, to look for three species of clubmoss ferns. Remarkably, they included alpine clubmoss – a species not recorded in the county since 1726. Being exceptional county rarities, their discovery …

Migration over London

Migration over London

Most people don’t look to the sky over London for migrating birds. I never used to. Until, way back in the early 1990s, I was waiting at a bus stop on Tottenham High Road. I looked up and noticed a smoky, long line of wood pigeons. I counted over four hundred before …

Verification: We Need Your Help

Verification: We Need Your Help

Are you enthralled by Ephemeroptera? Can you tell a Baetis rhodani from a Cloeon dipterum? Do you find fungi fascinating or think slime mould is sensational? If so, then you may be just the person we are looking for.

Book Review: “After London” by Richard Jefferies

Book Review: “After London” by Richard Jefferies

Richard Jefferies’ 1885 novel, After London, opens with a wonderful description of nature recovering after an unspecified disaster has befallen London and created a large lake in the middle of England. Jefferies is probably better known for his …

Interview, Emma Knowles

Interview, Emma Knowles

Emma Knowles is GiGL’s partnership officer. She delivers work for existing GiGL partners with service level agreements, as well as carrying out work with students that wish to use GiGL data for research projects. At times she focuses on internal database work and core projects. …

Joy of Recording

Joy of Recording

Collecting and submitting records provides a focus for my wildlife outings. That being said, I try to remember that looking for wildlife is not simply about numbers. For me, it may have been initially, but it certainly is not now. It’s also about having fun. …

Interview, Mandy Rudd

Interview, Mandy Rudd

GiGL’s Board of Directors are central to our work and our success. Their commitment and expertise helps guide GiGL and keeps us moving forward and developing. Directors are on the front line of biodiversity and open space work in the capital. They are GiGL service users and contribute to our data banks, as well as serving as ambassadors for GiGL.

Living History

Living History

In 2011, I wrote about my involvement with the ornithology records of the London Natural History Society, noting that I had first crossed their path some twenty years before that. Five years on, the nature of the project has changed, but much of the original challenge remains. I had seen my role, offering services to GiGL to process some old data, as not too demanding. However, when space in the Union …

Joy of Recording

Joy of Recording

When I was a kid and teenager, I spent a lot of time looking for fossils, fungi and berries. It didn’t occur to me at the time to try and put a label on everything, beyond whether it was useful or edible. It was much later that I became interested in identifying what I saw around me and then in counting it and recording it. When I moved to London I was fascinated by the quantity and variety of wildlife I discovered in an urban environment.

ALERC Conference

ALERC Conference

Once a year, local environmental records centres (LERCs) have the opportunity to meet at their association’s (ALERC) conference. As we all operate in separate geographic locations, it is great to come together to share learning and inspiration. This year, it was also good to celebrate our new status as accredited members of ALERC.

NBN Conference

NBN Conference

This year’s NBN conference, held in Edinburgh, was titled “Going with the flow: supporting the NBN data flow pathway”. This was a very timely topic for GiGL, as we have just written our own Data Flow Strategy. So, we happily joined the recording community for two days of talks and workshops centred around where biological data comes from, verification of records and the movement of data.

Interview, Suzie Jackman

Interview, Suzie Jackman

Suzie Jackman, Environmental and Sustainability Manager, Rail and Underground, for Transport for London, as well as a GiGL Director is our interviewee for this issue. GiGL’s Board of Directors are central to our work and our success. Their commitment and expertise helps guide GiGL and keeps us moving forward and developing.

Strategic Thinking

Strategic Thinking

How can I encapsulate twenty years of records centre development in London in a single article? I could chart our history through various consultations, through the process of deciding what a London environmental records centre would look like, or through statistics that show how our data holdings have grown and improved over time.

Simply Communicate

Simply Communicate

When communicators introduce the idea of a logical, step-by-step approach to communications planning, the common response is: “But communications is too messy for that kind of organised approach.” But this inherent messiness is exactly why it needs a linear, systematic method; to bring science to the art of communications.

Show & Tell

Show & Tell

To encourage idea sharing and inspire new projects, in each GiGLer edition we will be highlighting a couple of examples of how GiGL partners have used their SLAs. Please get in touch if you’d like to discuss utilising any of the services mentioned, or if you have a project using GiGL data that you would like to share.

Interview, Mathew Frith

Interview, Mathew Frith

GiGL’s Board of Directors are central to our work and our success. Their commitment and expertise helps guide GiGL and keeps us moving forward and developing. Directors are on the front line of biodiversity and open space work in the capital. They are GiGL service users and contribute to our data banks, as well as serving as ambassadors for GiGL.

Bridging the GAP

Bridging the GAP

It is central to GiGL’s philosophy that we don’t work in isolation. This philosophy also applies to our governance. Last year, we invited contacts to join a new combined “GiGL Advisory Panel” giving us an even wider range of industry knowledge and expertise.

Interview, John Swindells

Interview, John Swindells

GiGL’s Board of Directors are central to our work and our success. Their commitment and expertise helps guide GiGL and keeps us moving forward and developing. Directors are on the front line of biodiversity and open space work in the capital. They are GiGL service users and contribute to our data banks, as well as serving as ambassadors for GiGL.

Reflections on a decade at GiGL

Reflections on a decade at GiGL

In January 2015, after a decade at GiGL, I resigned my position as Operations Manager to take a much needed sabbatical with my young family. We headed to Mauritius, where I branded beaches with ‘GiGL Rocks!’ footprints using the custom flip-flops given to me as a leaving present.

Interview, David Darrell-Lambert

Interview, David Darrell-Lambert

GiGL’s Board of Directors are central to our work and our success. Their commitment and expertise helps guide GiGL and keeps us moving forward and developing. Directors are on the front line of biodiversity and open space work in the capital. They are GiGL service users and contribute to our data banks, as well as serving as ambassadors for GiGL.

Interview, Saskie Laing

Interview, Saskie Laing

GiGL’s Board of Directors are central to our work and our success. Their commitment and expertise helps guide GiGL and keeps us moving forward and developing. Directors are on the front line of biodiversity and open space work in the capital. They are GiGL service users and contribute to our data banks, as well as serving as ambassadors for GiGL.

Sheer Brilliance

Sheer Brilliance

There is a lot of cross-pollination amongst staff in the environmental records centre community. Outside of their paid jobs, many of the UK’s 100+ records centre staff are involved with local and national recording schemes. Some of them are county recorders. Some help run related businesses, including those who sit on the board of the Association of …

Snapping Wildlife

Snapping Wildlife

Photography is not only a profession and an art form, it is also a popular amateur pastime. The accessibility of photography as a hobby has been greatly increased by the rise of digital technology. The number of magazines, websites and courses available on the subject confirm its popularity. The rapid capture and instant sharing of everyday photographs has been facilitated by mobile phone cameras and social media platforms such as Flikr, Instagram and Twitter.

What’s in a name?

What’s in a name?

London’s open spaces weave through housing estates; grand London plane trees overhang busy roads; and gulls settle in wet patches of local football fields. iGiGL is a great tool for a little armchair sightseeing of the 47% of Greater London that is green.Clicking on the intriguing shapes that outline London’s parks and open spaces will bring back a wealth of information on site uses and facilities, a description of the wildlife or habitats, and snippets of local interest or history.

Interview, Valerie Selby

Interview, Valerie Selby

GiGL’s Board of Directors are central to our work and our success. Their commitment and expertise helps guide GiGL and keeps us moving forward and developing. Here, Valerie Selby, Chair of the Board of Directors, steps up to the plate and volunteers to be our first Director interviewee.

Balance of Data

Balance of Data

Armed with only a passion for numbers and a particular interest in wildlife statistics, I arrived at GiGL for my week’s work experience not entirely sure what I would be expected to do.

After settling in, I was presented with the number of records for three London boroughs.