Seeing the post about Barred Hook-tip, I recalled that had one in my garden last year, but on checking the distribution on upperthamesmoths.co.uk., I see that this record is not yet included.
This made me wonder what is the likely timescale for 2021 records to be included?
Phil T
A Blog for moth recorders in Bucks, Berks and Oxon
Hi Phil,
ReplyDeleteThe process of getting records ready for the National Moth Recording Scheme takes a while. Even after each County Moth Recorder has prepared another year's dataset, the "record cleaning" process means that there's still quite a bit of to-and-fro between him/her and Les Evans-Hill at Butterfly Conservation before those records are deemed acceptable and, of course, Les has to deal with all of the UK's CMRs and not just our own so there's quite often a queue for his attention. It is not until this process has been completed that the data can be made available to the Atlas.
The longest part of the process is still at the CMR end, getting the individual recorders' contributions into an acceptable state to upload to whatever database is used at the county level (currently MapMate for Bucks, iRecord for Berks & Oxon). It would be ideal if every recorder used the same system but they don't. Each CMR still gets spreadsheets in a number of formats, even paper records sometimes, although things are getting better now that more and more people are turning to iRecord.
Historically it has been a process whereby recorders send in their year's worth of data the following January (...or thereabouts) which actually leaves the CMR with little time to get things sorted before the new recording season starts - CMRs like to get out and see moths too and some of them still work for a living! So the final sorting of one year's data may not take place until the following winter. iRecord is improving this situation, meaning that there is now much less of a flood of records each January.
To answer your question, we would hope to get the Atlas data refreshed sometime next winter, to include everything up to 2021 for all three counties. Remember, though, that we still need to get the micro-moths sorted for the Atlas and that work will hopefully begin on that next winter too - the CMRs life is a busy one!
Hi Dave,
ReplyDeleteThanks for that very full response! I had naively assumed that records could be imported into the Atlas as soon as they were approved in iRecord, but there is clearly a great deal of work involved.
I find the Atlas distribution maps fascinating, so I'm really looking forward to the micros being completed.
And by way of a PS, I had a Barred Hook-tip in my MV trap last night...