Friday 16th May 2008

Friday 16th May 2008

British Wildlife

We have a lot of new articles and lists this week.

This week we want to take a look at wildlife photography. We have chosen not to do this as a themed week, looking at locations as such, but looking at the photography required and in a general way at opportunities available as well as putting in place building blocks that will allow us to develop this large area constantly over time. So before we look at the articles lets consider the building blocks and lists that offer advantages now and a skeleton for the future.

The start point was to identify a full list of our wildlife within Britain, and this is not as simple as it first sounds. This was done by comparing a variety of sources, none of which was complete. What we have built includes all we have identified to date, but may still have species missing.

Girls could this be your Prince ?

Image taken with Nikon D2h, with 60mm f2.8 lens, ISO 1000, 1/200th, F36

We have produced listings for:-

Mammals (excluding for now Whales, Dolphins and Porpoises)
Bats
Reptiles
Amphibians
Birds

We have so far not completed the insects, a large group, the most interesting of which are butterflies, bees, dragonflies and grasshoppers, and will look at these at other times. There are a few other groups including fishes and invertebrates that will also require our attention at some time.

In each case we have identified it by its common name and Latin name, as well as provide in all cases an initial link to one source where you can see more on this creature now. These first links are to entries within Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia of the internet. Although it may look as if we have produced a classified index to relevant entries in Wikipedia, this is not the finished item, but the skeleton that is the first building block. To this we have added additional links to other sources where we have the information available. Like the garden and other indexes, you will find we add other links to each, and as we cover each creature ourselves, add links to our pages from the creatures name, so it works like other sections, and is at the same time useful from the beginning.

Mammals, Bats, reptiles and amphibians are each single pages while the birds is a system of pages by family groups. We have included all creatures that may visit us around our shores, except for now Whales, Dolphins and Porpoises, and known extinct species. The Bird list has 578 entries, all birds in the official British List, which is maintained by the British Ornithologists Union are included, and we have added to the indexes all the common names of birds we are aware of. This includes 2 species now extinct, but we have marked these up and shown them in red. A fair proportion on the bird list you will find are occasional visitors. This is particularly valuable as a building block, in that when over the next few weeks we look at specific groups like deer and woodpeckers, we have identified all the species that we need to cover. Later we will be looking at how to identify a bird by a variety of features like bills, claws, etc. and how this guides you to the right family group. There are far more rare birds seen and photographed than come to light, simply because most of you and I are unable to work out the rarity from the similar looking commoner varieties. Unless birding is your passion in life, getting to recognise all of these would be difficult, but if we look at them a family at a time, a lot more will start to make sense. Family in the bird world comes in various sizes, some have just a single species, while others have a long list. Without going looking for birds specifically, or chasing rarities, most photographers will see over 100 different birds. We are using the same groupings, families etc as you would find elsewhere.

This as you will realise does not cover all that you could photograph as all the foreign birds in collections, and as pets, and animals in zoos and wildlife parks are not within these listings. However most of these are easier to identify, and often documented at the location.

At the same time we want to introduce the classification systems used by biologists and others. What we, like many of you, call the Latin names. So why bother you may ask, well it allows us to be more precise about what we are talking about. Some birds for example are known by several common names, but they will only have a single Latin name. So if we think we have discovered an additional species we can identify if its the same one under another name, at least in theory. Its very similar to the postcode in theory, and not difficult to follow. S ee more.

We also have a short introduction to birds, explaining where they come from, the number of varieties and more.

Some creatures, both in this country and more so elsewhere, are facing extinction, and there is a recognised system of markings for endangered species. This has a range of levels. We have an article on this, with the classification system and representation explained, and as you may guess we are also going to be including this on all our wildlife pages, where we are looking at specific species. Read more here.

We also take a look at two specific species this week, and have chosen the two types of squirrels found in the UK, the Red Squirrel, which is smaller and native to Britain, but now only found in a small number of places in England and Wales but still quite common in Scotland, and the imported larger Grey Squirrel, that is seen widely in England and Wales. An article on photographing squirrels, and a number of location guides on locations where you can photograph the rarer native red squirrel is also available now.

We have four further articles this week, one explaining wildlife photography more generally and a bulleted list of general tips on wildlife photography, one on photographic equipment suitable for wildlife photography and a substantial article looking at Bird and animal behaviour, Hides and camouflage.