Help me to count flowers for bees!
CUTS in budgets for sciences in many parts of the world is causing major problems for scientific research. There simply isn’t the money to pay enough experts to collect the data required for research. It is becoming clear that scientists have to find new and innovative ways of collecting data.
Scientists are turning to the public for help. With the invention of the internet, wifi and smartphones, the public can contribute to scientific research in a major way because people, aka citizen scientists, can collect simple data and submit it to a research project from anywhere in the world.
I’m asking people in Ireland to become citizen scientists for a few minutes!
I am working on a flower map of Ireland (see page opposite) to help conserve pollinators. Pollinators, like bees and hoverflies, need pollen and nectar from flowers for their food. Like us, they need a variety of foods to stay healthy. Unfortunately when you look across many an Irish landscape all you see is one colour, green. This is like a green desert for pollinators. Where are the flowers? Where is the variety?
I’m trying to find out which habitats and areas of Ireland provide good food for pollinators.
Is it urban parks and gardens, rural areas, grasslands, woodlands, hedgerows, bogs, sand dunes or other habitats?
I am encouraging everyone with a camera or a smartphone to take 10 photographs of the flowers or greenery in front of their feet while out walking, upload them to Flickr and add them to my Flickr group ‘Count Flowers for Bees’ https://www.flickr.com/groups/2770207@ N24/.
You can also have a go at identifying the flowers, but most importantly say where you took the photos. With these photos I will be able to count the flowers and identify the plant families/species that are typical of the area where you surveyed.
If enough people contribute it will help me get an idea of flower diversity in places I would never have had the time to visit and so make a more accurate flower map of Ireland.
My brother-in-law, Eamonn Rockett, is also working on a free smartphone app which will be an alternate way of submitting your photos to the project. The National Biodiversity Data Centre will help advertise the app, so keep an eye on their website in June/ July.