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Help recover 20th century bird observations collected by the London Natural History Society
Learn moreRecord cards are organised by year, then species and then vice county. The cards detail the record location, date, abundance, the observer and additional notes.
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About London Bird Records
The Project
Bird watchers in London have been spotting and recording birds flying in and through the city for years. People have carefully noted down the species and locations of these birds and the London Natural History Society (LNHS) has boxes of record cards of bird sightings spanning the last century. We need your help to digitise the data.
Most of these record cards haven't been examined since they were first written by the original recorder, so you might discover something surprising! The LNHS recording area covers a 20-mile radius from St Paul’s Cathedral and the recording landscape has changed many times since the first record card was created.
Having transcribed the record cards covering the 1980s we reckon it will take approximately 70 years to digitise all the cards at our current rate, so we need your help to discover what birds these 20th-century bird watchers were spotting.
What we want to find out
The main goal of this project is to recover historic species data so that the information can be used by ecologists, conservationists, decision-makers and anyone else who is interested. This will improve knowledge of bird populations and distribution in London, and allow historical bird data to be made available for scientific research.
In partnership with LNHS, GIGL (Greenspace Information for Greater London CIC) has been working on these record cards so they can be added to our dataset of species in London. This collated dataset of information from hundreds of people informs decisions affecting wildlife in London and ultimately the conservation of species and habitats in the capital.
We'd love your help to transcribe this data and interpret the diverse and idiosyncratic handwriting that only human beings can read and understand effectively. The transcription of these record cards will provide a huge contribution to the field of natural history, and particularly to conservation in London and surrounding areas of South-East England.
Thank you for your help!