While it may be true that some species are more exciting to find than others, usually due to their rarity or beauty, it is also important to record common and ordinary wildlife too. Every piece of information helps to build up a better understanding of the natural world in which we live, and can also help direct conservation efforts and steer new development away from sensitive areas.

Reports about wildlife should be sent to the appropriate County Recorders. A County Recorder is a unpaid volunteer that has been appointed to keep records on a particular group of wildlife within the county. They tend to specialize in one or two groups only, so depending upon what was seen, the reports may need to go to different people.

If you aren't too sure of what you have seen, contact them anyway, and they may be able to help with its identification. We all have to learn to identify wildlife and most naturalists are only too happy to share their knowledge with others.

A record is a summary of something that was seen and should contain all of the following pieces of information about an observation:

	Species
	Date
	Grid reference
	Location description
	Observer name(s)
	Nature of record

The first five items are required for all types of record, but the "Nature of record" will vary according to the wildlife being recorded. For mammals it could be fur, prints, adults, a sett, a road kill, a spraint, etc. For butterflies it may be the quantity, eggs, larva, pupa, etc. And so on for other groups.

Since the County Recorders are best equipped to advise on what is important to report for their group, we won't do so here. They can also advise on what to look for, where and when, and if help is needed for a particular project, so please don't be afraid to contact them. They will welcome any help you can give and will be happy to talk to you about their speciality.

The full set of the current County Recorders can be found on the Bedfordshire Natural History Society website, in the Contacts section. We hope to obtain access to much of our data through these Recorders, so by sending your records to them they should in turn become available to the BRMC.

That website also carries some standard forms preferred by the Recorders for submitting records. While they are usually happy to accept records in any intelligble format, by using their preferred forms this greatly aids their processing of data which can amount to tens of thousands of records per year!