… by which I mean that we made a record of species observed for 2024! Whether it was a record year we have no idea since there are no previous records to compare with.
Recording in 2024 has relied on using iNaturalist. We started using it in anger for the BioBlitz event in June last year (although people had been recording observations in the wood before that) and have continued to do so after the event. So what did the wood achieve?
For the year as a whole, 368 separate species were recorded.
Comparing this with the BioBlitz:
| Period | Observations | Unique species |
| BioBlitz | 312 | 220 |
| 2024 total | 600 | 368 |
…which means that quite a lot of species were added at other times, many because the BioBlitz was not their time of the year, particularly fungi. The fungi season started in earnest at the end of August, and by the end of October, which included the fungi walk we organised at the beginning of that month, 32 more species had been added.
Is 368 a good number? I asked the Internet the question “how many species can I expect to find in my local UK wood?” And guess what? There was no answer.
You can explore the iNat data for Oakley Wood for 2024 here. At the top right of the screen is a button labelled “Filters”. Click this and you will get a panel that lets you look at the data in different ways, for example, by category – plants, birds, fungi etc. The link already has certain values pre-filled (location, date range) but these can be changed.
Observations – verified or not
One of the values of iNat is that observations can be viewed and verified by any user of the system, many of whom would count as experts (although many may not). Verified observations are marked “research grade” to indicate a greater value for researchers. In order to be verifiable, an observation has to have some data with it that can be examined after the event, usually photos . These observations are marked “verifiable”. If there is no data associated with them, they are marked “casual” because they cannot be independently verified. You can see that our observations contain a mixture of these.
Casual observations would normally be seen to be of less value than verifiable/verified ones. But it’s important to know who made the observation. Many, perhaps most, of our “casual” observations were made by knowledgeable people, so casual doesn’t necessarily mean “inexpert”. For example, many of our plant observations were provided by the Warwickshire Flora Group from their visit in May – this batch of observations has full value even though a third-party user of iNat would not be aware of this. The same goes for any observations made by any of the other expert groups who were unable for whatever reason to provide photographic evidence. Bird observations fall into this category as bird photos need a decent camera (and time, patience and opportunity), and for experts, birds can be “observed” just by hearing them.
Confidence
So what sort of confidence can we have in the overall species count? We can look at how many species were verified, how many verifiable but unverified, and how many identified by casual observation.
Our observations for 2024 break down like this:
| Observation type | Species count |
| Verified | 159 |
| Verifiable but not (yet) verified | 80 |
| Casual (no evidence provided) | 129 |
These are some things we can say about unverified observations.
There may be many reasons why verifiable observations remain unverified – often because the photographic evidence provided just isn’t good enough, but perhaps no-one has looked or is interested. Or even because no-one actually knows. Whatever the reason, we would have to count these as uncertain.
Most of our casual observations were made by knowledgeable people. 114 species were identified by the Warwickshire Flora Group and I think we can take these expert observations as the equivalent of verified. (The 2014 BioBlitz relied entirely on this type of observation.) Similarly the 45 species identified by our moth experts and 26 bird observations can reasonably also be added. Together, they come to 185, and it doesn’t take an eagle eye to notice that this is more than the total casual count. The reason is because there will have been quite a bit of doubled counting – species that were also in one or more of the other categories. We know that 129 species were identified by casual observation alone, but not which ones, and iNat does not provide an easy way of finding this out.
As most of our casual observations were made by “knowledgeable people”, I’d count these as reliable.
So where does this leave us?
Overall I’d say that there is uncertainly over some 20% of species identification, but it is a guess and at the end of the day we have to accept that this isn’t rigorous science. Regardless, it’s the best record we have so far for what can be found in Oakley Wood, and iNaturalist allows us to see it. You are encouraged to engage in more citizen science and keep adding to this in 2025.
As a final thought, it would be good to get the Wildlife Trust to organise similar exercises in their other woods and reserves, then we would have something to compare with.
Chris