Exploring wildlife through maps.
I recently completed an online course from the University of Oxford's Continuing Education Department , introducing me to the joys of GIS (Geographic Information Science/Systems) - I've always liked browsing maps, so to be able to create my own is just brilliant! I thought I'd share my first map(s) - all about Curlew (CU), Lapwing (L) and Snipe (SN) in East Norfolk, which happens to be where I have been surveying farmland for evidence of breeding of these declining waders for the RSPB. I gathered species presence data from BTO's BirdTrack records. BirdTrack is a citizen science project in which birders record lists of their sightings in 1km tetrads (fancy word for square) and upload them to the BirdTrack site, usually via the app, so that the clever bods at BTO can gain an insight into population trends and other details, such as the effect of climate change, important for their conservation. It's great at any time of the year to see what is going on in almo