Bedfont Lakes is a 72.5 hectare country park on the edge of Greater London, and one of the best birdwatching sites in the southwest of the capital. Its size rivals that of Greenwich Park and Wandsworth Common. Yet, when I mention it among Londoner friends and colleagues, no one’s ever heard of it…
Julie is one of GiGL’s Partnership Officers. She delivers work for existing GiGL partners with Service Level Agreements. She is Commissioning Editor of the GiGLer newsletter and co-ordinates our SLA Spotlight bulletin for existing and potential SLA partners…
Anyone familiar with our strategic plan knows that our vision is that ‘London’s natural environment is appreciated, understood, considered and improved’, but how do we monitor and evaluate our services and identify the outcomes and impact of our work? Can we demonstrate that London’s human inhabitants are benefiting from our work too?..
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…
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…
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…
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…
Place has been an integral part of natural history observations from the very beginning. Authors have described the natural history of their parish, their town or their county often in great detail. But the systematic recording of place to give an account of distribution is much more recent…
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”…
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…
“…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…
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…
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…
…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)…
Brett Westwood and Stephen Moss are names you will have come across if you watch or listen to any BBC wildlife programmes or radio series. They are household names in the BBC Natural History Unit when it comes to British wildlife…
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….
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…
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…
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…
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)…
Written as a response to the Eden Project – the world famous geodesic domed botanical spectacular in Cornwall – this book is as much a reflection on humankind’s relationship with plants as it is on the myths of its sub-title…
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”…
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…
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…
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…
When you Google ‘Warwick Gardens Peckham’ you get a mixed bag of results, from the park’s Twitter account run by the Friends of Warwick Gardens, describing it as ‘Peckham’s premier 24 hour municipal open space’, through to numerous estate agents’ websites promising properties to rent and buy…
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.
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 …
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 …
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.
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 …
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. …
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. …
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.
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 …
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 …
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.