Identification help

National Recording Schemes – Biological Records Centre’s List of Recording Schemes. Use this to find a contact or web link to a particular recording scheme as well as access to recording resources.

iSpot – is a website for helping you identify wildlife and share nature. You can post a photograph of your find on the site and suggest an identification yourself or ask others to identify it for you. You can also help others by identifying their finds.

iNaturalist – online recording website and phone app. with image recognition for photo ID. There are a few simple steps you need to take to make sure your data are used – the most important one is that TWIC can only benefit from your records if you change the default licence from CC-BY-NC to either a CCO or CC-BY licences. Refer to our article for further hints on making the most of the site.

Highland Biological Recording Group links page – a comprehensive list of identification resources with links to external websites.

Maps and grid references

Ordnance Survey’s Guide to Grid References – An introduction on how to read grid references from Ordnance Survey maps.

Grab a Grid Reference Tool from Bedfordshire Natural History Museum – Obtain a grid reference by searching on postcode or place name. Can also be used to check the accuracy of a grid reference obtained in the field.

Vice-county lookup – Check the relevant vice-county for a grid reference or place.

‘Where’s the path’ – Useful for planning routes. Includes old Ordnance Survey base layer maps which can be useful for checking location names for older records.

Pastmap – Allows you to load OS base maps including 1st edition OS data and OS data from the 1900s. Useful for checking historic land use and place names for older records that are no longer shown on contemporary OS maps.

Batch Covert tool’ – Batch Convert Latitude, Longitude to UK Grid Reference or UK Grid Reference to Latitude longitude.

GIS Resources

QGIS – Free open source GIS software.

Tom.bio QGIS Biological Recording Plugin – Information, including help files, on this QGIS plugin. The tool is designed specifically for biological recorders. Download the plugin here.

Other resources

NBN Atlas Scotland – Use this to check the scientific names for species, check synonyms and look up existing species distributions.

Find an LERC map – Find the LERC for your area by searching on postcode, place name or grid reference.

NBN Record Cleaner – Free software to assist with records validation and verification.

Twicky-winkle goes recording – A fun story to demonstrate how and why we record wildlife (PDF, 2.63 MB, 2 pages).