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6. Record Insects for Citizen Science!
In week six, we ask you to get to know and record at least one insect in your local habitat.
Contributing to our knowledge of the world’s species doesn’t have to be an undertaking of Linnaean proportions. Simply watch a patch of thistles, for example, for ten minutes, and notice who comes flying in and out for a feed of nectar or pollen during that time.
That is how the Flower Insect Timed Count works. Carry out one of these simple but valuable surveys, upload your records to the National Biodiversity Data Centre website, and you will have passed the sixth task of the challenge!
If even ten minutes feels like too great a commitment, download the NBDC app next time you see something familiar and common, like a seven-spot ladybird or a common carder bumble bee, pop into the website and record where and when you saw it.
Our hope is that you will get bitten by the recording bug, and start seeking out and collecting facts about real life creatures, the way we do with imaginary ones on a certain augmented reality mobile game.
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Every record added to the database of information we have about the biodiversity on this island helps us to gain a clearer picture of the distribution, habitat needs, and increasing or decreasing population figures of every one of these important species.
Finding new species to add to your collection releases the same kind of brain chemical rewards that kept our hunter-gatherer ancestors foraging, and brings us closer to our environment and the other species who share it. Brilliant for our mental health.
Expert beekeeper Jim Ryan talks about pollinating insects and how to identify them, in our third webinar, Things on the Wing: https://youtu.be/nIFH6R0HWVc
Submit your records to the National Biodiversity Data Centre and find identification resources: https://biodiversityireland.ie
Instructions for the Flower Insect Timed Count: https://pollinators.ie/record-pollinators/fit-count/
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