NBN Award for Wildlife Recording

This week, I was both surprised and delighted to receive the NBN Newcomer Award for Wildlife Recording.

Now, it isn’t often I post about myself on this blog but on this occasion, you’ll have to forgive me. Following yesterday’s announcement, I can now say that I was thrilled (and more than a little surprised) this week to receive the National Biodiversity Network (NBN) Newcomer Award for Wildlife Recording. A slightly daunting prospect given some of the incredible past winners but one I am sincerely grateful for.

Wildlife recording for me isn’t just about box-ticking, lists and spreadsheets, though I enjoy those too! Instead, it is a valuable way to give back to nature by creating valuable data that can (and is) used to protect it. Equally, it is about encouraging and supporting others to do the same and getting more people out and about encountering wildlife.

On a more personal and perhaps a little self-centred level (I think that’s allowed here), recording also provides a focus to my weekend walks and an excuse to spend every spare minute rummaging around in a host of great places. What’s not to like? Whether we’re talking plants, ladybirds or something else, occasionally, you also make the odd interesting discovery too which does help keep you motivated but doesn’t matter all too much in the grand scheme of things.

While I can think of far more deserving citizen scientists out there, I am truly grateful to NBN for the award, and to those who supported and encouraged me over the years. Not least, colleagues at NHSN and BSBI and the plethora of local naturalists I have the pleasure to meet with regularly.

I would also like to thank anyone who has stuck with this blog since its creation in 2011 – it has changed a fair bit, but the feedback received here has also been constantly encouraging!