Presenting records via Facebook

Use of the UK Hoverflies Facebook group as a way of getting photos checked has grown quite remarkably. It is a great way of facilitating interactions between observers and the Recording Scheme and is now generating a phenomenal number of records: there were over 4,000 gathered in July from web-based sources, with the majority coming from this group. Obviously such large numbers mean that data comes in all sorts of formats and there is quite a big job turning FB posts into a spreadsheet, so I thought some guidance on record/photo submission might be helpful.

My spreadsheet for web-based data has the following headings:

Column header	Notes
Species name	I record full identifications and partial identifications in two different spreadsheets. The first comprises those records that can be taken fully to species or to an aggregate name where there has been a split and the Resident Team refer to the aggregated name. For example, if we cannot put a firm name to a specimen that would once have been recorded as Xanthogramma pedissequum I record this as Xanthogramma pedissequum s.l. If we can only get to Genus or Tribe, then these go on a separate sheet.
Date	This is arranged dd/mm/yyyy e.g. 31/07/2016; if we cannot get a full date then it will be recorded as either 'July 2016 or as '2016. The latter two options are far from ideal but can be used.
Grid reference	Ideally a four or six-figure OS grid reference. A lot of grid reference finders take the resolution to the 1 metre level i.e. 10-figure level which in most cases is probably false accuracy if we move around to get shots and records. Nevertheless, if that is what the recorder has used then it is logged.
Location name	If a location name has not been supplied then I look the site up on Streetmap and find a logical name if I can.
Recorder	This is the name of the person who makes the post. Where I know that people use various aliases then I include these too (some people have up to four aliases).
Determiner	If a photo is published then I use my own name unless I feel it appropriate to defer to somebody else - either Ian Andrews or Joan Childs, or occasionally Gerard Pennards. Just occasionally I use the recorder's name when he/she has posted an awkward angled shot of an obvious species and almost certainly knows what they saw. I run a separate spreadsheet for records that come in without a photo to back them up and in these cases the determiner is the name of the recorder unless there are good reasons to use another name.
Stage	Essentially male/female/larva but occasionally it is not possible to determine gender and in these cases the annotation is 'adult'. I use 'adult' for pairs in cop and make a note in the notes section that this was a pair in cop. Likewise where there is a nuptial stack of Eristalis nemorum I note the numbers of adults in the abundance column. I run separate lines for males and females, except where there are mating pairs or nuptial stacks.
Abundance	This is as best as I can do to determine how many individuals of the gender reported or photographed.
Source	This is the URL for the Facebook post or for the iSpot or Flickr post. If several posts depict animals from the same location on the same day then I add additional URLs separated by &
Notes	Here I log observations by recorders and items such as flower visit records. I do not log the leaves an animal was on and make clear that the flower involved (if visited) was a potential pollination event by saying 'at x' or 'visiting  y'. This column is useful for behavioural notes. Where I am unsure of the plant associated with the hoverfly I usually put 'at ???' or 'at ?Sweet Pea' or 'at umbellifer'

What is the best format for a post?

I usually copy and paste details from the FB post, so there are things that can be done to help.

A really nice example of presentation might be along the lines of:

I had an excellent day in the garden with lots of hoverflies. Here are my photos:

Episyrphus balteatus (2 photos, same specimen); Eristalis arbustorum at hogweed; Eristalis pertinax; Eristalis tenax (2 photos of separate animals); Platycheirus albimanus male and female. both visiting vipers bugloss

Not photographed:

Syritta pipiens 1 male; Volucella zonaria 1female at buddleia

Observation details:

Queen Elizabeth II Reservoir, West Molesey

TQ123678

09/08/2016

The above example is fine - I can cut and paste the basic site details straight into the spreadsheet. I usually then copy the species list into Word and run find and replace to turn it into a list with tabs to separate numbers and observations - the above would then look like this:

Episyrphus balteatus	1	adult	2 photos, same specimen
Eristalis arbustorum	1	adult	at hogweed
Eristalis pertinax	1	adult
Eristalis tenax	1	adult	2 photos of separate animals
Platycheirus albimanus	1	male	visiting vipers bugloss
Platycheirus albimanus	1	female	visiting vipers bugloss

I can then cut and paste each column into the spreadsheet

Some hints on what not to do

Species names

It helps not to abbreviate the generic name - I simply have to type this so it is not a huge problem, but it does add to the job.

Grid references:

One of the biggest problems we have is grid references. Stuart has found that the advent of GPS has exacerbated rather than resolved this problem. Somewhere between 5 and 10% of all records have some sort of grid reference problem.

The worst I have to deal with are lat long data, which people submit in all sorts of permutations - they can take a fair while to sort out and make sure that the correct OS reference has been determined.

The other regular problems are:

·         people leaving off the 100km letters (e.g. TQ)

·         people using lower case - I turn these into upper case to make sure that the spreadsheet is uniform and simple to read. It is a small niggle but does add to the time involved in creating a complete record.

·         Separating the grid reference using commas, lines etc e.g. TQ28/68 or TQ28,67 etc - I have to remove these. I regularly run a find and replace to clean all of these sorts of glitches from the data.

·         people who place the location out to sea, either accidentally or deliberately. We do get the occasional marine record from oil rigs and ships, but these are usually noted in the post.

I should also say that it does help to separate records from different sites onto different posts - I am a 'bear of small brain' and having a post with records from several sites does cause confusion and transcription errors.

What do the resulting data look like? 

Example section of photographic spreadsheet for 2016.