County firsts!

First county records can sometimes be like London buses. You wait in vain for ages, and then two or sometimes three come along all at once!

This is certainly the case this year with bats in Brecknock (Vice County 42). First we have the discovery of a serotine bat, Eptesicus serotinus, by David Lewns in a tree near Llyswen. The animal in question was identified by examination of its skull, the bat having been dead for some time. The serotine has troubled bat workers in the area for many years. The first Welsh record for the species comes from Vice County 43, Radnorshire as long ago as 1985, when John Messenger found a pregnant female at Penybont. The species has been heard a number of times on bat detectors around Hay-on-Wye and Abernant, but in these cases we either couldn’t be sure which side of the river they were on, or they were heterodyne identifications, not sufficiently good enough to be used as county records.

Hot on the heels of the first serotine comes another apparent first for Brecknock with a time expansion recording of Nathusius’s pipistrelle, Pipistrellus nathusii, near Bwlch. Time expansion recording preserves all the characteristics of a bat echo-location call and the recordings can be fed into a computer, producing a sonogram for analysis. In this case the recording was made by Diane Morgan, the co-ordinator for Brecknock Bat Group. The record in this case was verified by John Messenger.

Nathusius’s pipistrelle is a relative newcomer to Wales. The first record for the species comes from 1994, when Bob Stebbings confirmed the presence of one at Stackpole, Pembrokeshire (Vice County 45). There were no further records for the species in Wales until 2002 when literally within days of each other Ian Davidson-Watts and I recorded this large pipistrelle at two widely separated locations. I got mine at Skenfrith Castle (Monmouthshire, VC35) and Ian got his at Margam Park, Glamorganshire (VC41). Since then I have also recorded the species at Hensol Castle (Glamorganshire) in 2004.

So, two new county firsts in short order, or is it…you know when you think that you’ve gotten to the bottom of something and then someone says ah…but. Well I was just finishing this article off in the office when Robert, who does out time expansion recording analysis, was going through some old discs left on one side from the summer of 2006. There in amongst these recordings was a very clear sonogram for a Nathusius’s pipistrelle from Halfway. Now Diane was again the recorder, so no problem there. However, we just need to check which side of the county line it was, Brecknock, or Carmarthenshire (VC44)…see what I mean, nothing for ages and then….

Phil Morgan

County Mammal Recorder, Brecknock (VC42)

All-Wales LRC network is launched

A report by Rob Davies, Manager West Wales Biodiversity Information Centre.

Representatives from the major conservation groups across Wales gathered at the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff on Wednesday 28th November 2007 to celebrate the completion of a Wales-wide network of Local Records Centres. Various speakers were introduced by chair Paul Lovelock (President of the Board of Trustees of the Museum) to present the views of the major stakeholders in this exercise:

• Dr David Parker (Director of Science, CCW) explained how LRCs can deliver many information objectives on behalf of the Countryside Council For Wales and its significance for the National Biodiversity Network.
• Jane Davidson (Minister for Environment, Sustainability and Housing, Welsh Assembly Government) gave glowing praise for the achievement of the LRC network and highlighted its importance within the national strategy

Jane Davidson (Photo: Dave Cope)

• Paul Sinnudurai (Senior Ecologist and Policy Officer, Brecon Beacons National Park) gave a case history for the close workings of a National Park and a LRC (BIS)
• David Clements (Managing director of David Clements Ecology) clearly showed the benefits of a private consultant making full use of SEWBReC
• Barry Stewart (West Glamorganshire County Moth Recorder) gave an honest account from the Recorder's perspective, explaining what the costs were in relinquishing data and how this had been
  outweighed by the overall benefits of help with the recording process
• Derek Moore (OBE, WWBIC Director) gave a brilliant overview which looked at the long and celebrated history of biological recording in Britain with great anecdotes of "what makes recorders tick".

Derek called on the Welsh Assembly Government not to underestimate this enormous army of voluntary recorders and to keep the LRCs fully supported. Topics for discussion included who should handle marine data and it was suggested that LRCs played a greater role in informing the agricultural community. Paul Lovelock summed up the occasion admirably and made his
personal plea that the Pembrokeshire Islands achieve World Heritage status.

As the UKBAP 2010 deadline for reversing the loss of biodiversity, draws near, governing bodies are under increasing legal pressure to have regard for biodiversity in all forms of land use planning and environmental management, and conservation agencies are having to work harder and more strategically to deliver positive results. In the past it has been extremely difficult
for both to do this because the exponential growth in biodiversity information has been locked up on paper, in filing cabinets, and in the personal knowledge banks of a multitude of disparate individuals.

For the whole of Wales these information silos have now been freed up by LRCs, computerised and made readily reportable from four regional spatial databases so that decisions which affect land use and conservation across the whole of Wales, whether by individual landowners or great government agencies, may now be made in light of the best available information on species, habitats and protected areas.

We also held the first meeting of the Chairs and Managers of all four Wales LRCs in Cardiff the day before the launch. All four LRCs have clearly benefitted for the spirit of cooperation that exists within this group.

BIS Recorders Newsletter Autumn 2008

Our latest newsletter (issue 6) is now available to read or download.

Seasons Greetings to all our users and data suppliers

Please note that the BIS office will be closed from the 22nd December to the 4th January 2009.

The staff at BIS would like to wish all the best for Christmas and the New Year, to its customers, partners and recorders that have supported us over the last year.

Distribution maps of species records held at BIS

At the recent BIS Recorders Forum we displayed a range of distribution maps, produced from ArcView, which show the number of records held by BIS on a 1km square basis in November 2008. These were also broken down into some of the major taxon groups for Vascular plants,lower plants, birds. They can now be viewed as pdf files.Go to Records and Data in the left hand menu.