Recommended sites for further information, and for help with ID

CHECKED AND UPDATED JULY 2022

For information about recording schemes go to Citizen Science

General information about wildlife-friendly gardening

Wild About Gardens
A collaboration between the Wildlife Trusts and the Royal Horticultural Society, with information about garden wildlife and how to plan and maintain a garden to support that wildlife.

The Wildlife Gardening Forum
Not an on-line forum but a charity dedicated to furthering wildlife-friendly gardening. Their extensive website aims to provide a high quality evidence base for wildlife-friendly gardening. The Forum circulates a quarterly e-newsletter to members with the latest wildlife gardening news and science, and runs a popular Facebook group. Membership is free.

RSPB: Creating a wildlife-friendly garden
Not just about birds, this is also one of the UK’s leading sites about gardens and wildlife.

Wildlife Gardening With Jenny Steel
Jenny Steel is a well-known author on wildlife gardening. Her site provides concise and helpful information.

Specific information about gardening for pollinators

The Wildlife Trusts: Bees and Pollinators
This section of the Wildlife Trusts' website gives links to action packs, a wild bee ID sheet, case studies, and a list of 5 actions you can do to support pollinators based on DEFRA's National Pollinator Strategy for England.
 

RHS Plants for Pollinators Planting Lists
A good place to start as many nurseries and garden centres now sell plants that bear this logo on their labels. The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) states:
'Using scientific evidence, our extensive experience and the records of gardeners and beekeepers, we've selected a range of year-round flowering Plants for Pollinators to tackle the decline in pollinator numbers.' Their web page has links to downloadable plant lists.
A small note of caution: Be aware that a few nurseries and retailers use their own similar-looking 'bee friendly' logos that are not necessarily based on the RHS advice and in some cases are misleading or wrong. Some others still use an out-of-date RHS 'Perfect for Pollinators' logo that was replaced by the RHS 'Plants for Pollinators' one some years ago. If in doubt refer to the latest planting lists on this RHS web page.

Gardening for Butterflies and Moths
This is a section of Butterfly Conservation's website with a wealth of specific information for gardeners, including separate plant lists for butterflies and moths.

Gardening for Bumblebees
This is a section of the Bumblebee Conservation trust's website with specific advice about gardens.
 

General Identification

iSpot is friendly and free community helping to identify wildlife in Britain and
Ireland. you can browse the thousands of species spotted so far, or submit your observation, try to identify it, and the community will help. Has separate on-line communities covering some other parts of the world

Butterflies and Moths

Butterfly Conservation
Website of the UK's national moth and butterfly conservation organisation. Runs the Big Butterfly Count for three weeks every summer.

UK Butterflies  Provides information on all of the butterfly species found in  Britain and Ireland, with ID pages

UK Moths
The defintive on-line identification guide to the moths of Britain and Ireland, with over two thousand species featured and over seven thousand images.

Irish Butterflies
Contains information about the butterfly species found in Ireland, where to see butterflies, information on completing butterfly surveys, and listings of recommended books and links.

Bees (not honey bees)

Steven Falk’s British Bees on Flickr site is the comprehensive resource for images and information about wild bees. It has excellent pictures, background information and links to further useful websites and books about wild bees in Western Europe.

Bumblebee Conservation Trust
This is the leading bumblebee conservation organisation in the UK.

Bees, Wasps and Ants Recording Society (BWARS)
Through this site you can access distribution maps for wild bees and images of wild bees in Britain and Ireland.

Hymettus Ltd
A conservation charity for wild bees, ant and wasps producing useful Information Sheets for gardeners.

Nico's Wild Bees and Wasps images by Nicolas Vereecken


Nurturing Nature  George Pilkington's site contains useful articles, information and vidoes about solitary bees and bee houses: click on the 'articles' menu item and you will find lists of topics down both sides of the page.

Hoverflies

Steven Falk’s page of hoverfly images  has good background information and further links

The Hoverfly Recording Scheme site has species descriptions and distribution maps. (Maps are for GB only).

If you live in Ireland

If you live in Northern Ireland or The Republic of Ireland,
the Irish Pollinator initiative website has species lists and ID help as well as links to data recording schemes for Ireland.

 Go to Citizen Science  for more links relating specifically to wildlife recording that you can do at home.

Last updated July 2022. Copyright © Marc Carlton 2006 - 2022. See 'About this Website' for terms of use.