Highgate Neighbourhood Forum Citizen Science Guide

HNF are encouraging everyone in Highgate – and particularly those with gardens on our suggested wildlife corridors – to survey their patch. Thanks to Heath Hands for these suggestions on how to begin your Citizen Science project.

The iNaturalist app

This is an easy app to identify and record plants, insects, birds and animals – just take a photo and upload and there’s no need to know what you’ve seen – people will help ID. It’s a good way to compile data that can then be looked at by area or by date. Or you can set up a ‘project’ – eg neighbours could group together to share sightings in one street – or a “Bioblitz” event.

Workshops

You can see all Heath Hands upcoming events here. They will also be running a iNaturalist workshop at the Highgate Festival EcoFair in Pond Square on June 15, pm.

In addition, Kiran Lee, the Ecologist at Omved Gardens will be running ecology tours of the Gardens to encourage biodiversity in urban gardens as a part of London Open Gardens on Sunday 9 June.

Guidance online

The Natural History Museum has a new resource centre for citizen science initiatives (including info on the iNaturalist app). This includes a calendar of the various different citizen science initiatives to tap into.

Recording hedgehogs and other animals active at night

Heath Hands use these cameras to record hedgehogs. All their cameras will be on duty for their large hog survey in May, so they can’t lend them out, but they’re around £160 + you’d need a strap to fix it e.g. to a tree, and a memory card for recording the footage.

As a lower-cost option, you can also get a footprint tunnel and here is some guidance from PTES on how to monitor with this method.

Heath Hands’ hedgehog friendly heath project page also has some useful links to information about how to make gardens more hedgehog-friendly, as well as the option of buying a ‘hedgehog tunnel’ sign for gaps between gardens.

Good luck and have fun! Please let us know what you are doing on info@forhighgate.org so we can keep track of what is happening where.

Highgate Neighbourhood Forum Biodiversity Network, April 2024