This spring Londoners have helped protect each other by curtailing our daily travels to stop the spread of the coronavirus. This has also, necessarily, affected our trips to visit greenspaces and see wildlife. We are still receiving records from people’s gardens, of wildlife spotted through windows or from permitted walks…
Issue 28
Information is Beautiful
Data is dull, isn’t it? It’s just a load of facts and figures collected together, a series of ones and zeros that don’t seem to be worth paying much attention to. But when it is presented in the right way data really comes alive. It is possible to convey a whole story in just one image that is simultaneously accurate, revealing and persuasive…
Business as usual
The last few months have been anything but usual. Whilst COVID-19 has brought about previously unforeseen changes to our daily-lives, GiGL is proud that we’ve been able to maintain as much of a standard service to our stakeholders as possible…
Joy of Recording: Bedfont Lakes – the volunteers assisting an ecological transformation
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…
Mapping Dragons
The GiGL team were trying to think of a fun way to celebrate April fool’s day. What map could we generate and share with our community? After deliberating on the usual mythical candidates we settled on the idea of dragons; thinking to ourselves that there must be data out there that we could use to create a fun map…
Interview, Julie Cox
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…
GiGL and Social Impact
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?..
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…
Show & Tell: Lunch and Learn Event
At GiGL we are mindful that many of our stakeholders work with us directly via their service contracts, or to exchange data, but we rarely meet in a group unless it’s focused on a task in hand. With that in mind, GiGL held its first ‘lunch and learn’ event on 12th February 2020…
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…