Dragonfly records from the British Dragonfly Society Recording Scheme

Quality Control

Records are only included after verification and acceptance by a BDS County Dragonfly Recorder (CDR). The date of the most recent verification is included in the dynamicProperties sub-term 'verifiedDate'. Where a record at genus rank can only be of one species, the reassignment to species has been made and the original identification is included in the term 'occurrenceRemarks'. An example is Brachytron to Brachytron pratense. Records of vague taxa above the rank of genus have been excluded. In general, those records awarded 'Accepted - correct' status have photographic (see 'MediaCount' sub-term, below) or specimen evidence seen by the verifier whereas those awarded 'Accepted - considered correct' do not pass this strict test. Some CDRs, however, award 'Accepted - correct' status to records without further evidence. Some older records and some from sources outside iRecord have an unqualified 'Accepted' status. Some source systems do not distinguish the Life Stage ('stage' term) of the individual(s) recorded. An attempt has been made (using algorithms) to assign the most likely stage to each, defaulting to 'adult'. An indication is included where the original record had media (typically photographs) available to the verifier. Where this is known, the number of media items is present in dynamicProperties sub-term 'MediaCount'. e.g. {"MediaCount":3}

Method steps

1. Each record is a field observation with an individual count of a single Life Stage, though many are set to 'present' when uncounted. Where a single iRecord record has been 'flattened' to multiple NBN Atlas records, one for each life stage recorded, these are held together by and can be aggregated on the 'recordNumber' term. Where several species are recorded at the same time, these have the same key value in the 'eventID' term. The value in the 'lifeStage' term is also coded into the 'occurrenceID' term as a suffix. For example, value iBRC18178171.Ad indicates an adult and 'lifeStage' contains the value 'adult'. Some records are from site monitoring. If and only if the 'fieldNotes' term includes a 'Recorded all species' component, the recorder asserts having recorded all species seen on that date at that site, not just the interesting ones. Records from BTO (BirdTrack), Butterfly Conservation (BBS, WCBS, etc.) are pumped directly into iRecord and reviewed by BDS verifiers. However, there are currently some issues with BirdTrack records having vague map references due to conversion within iRecord from point-and-radius co-ordinates to OS grid squares and the large size of many BTO sites. We hope to refine the map references of many of these records in time for the next update - sometime in mid-2024. The life stage 'Oviposition scars' is specific to Chalcolestes viridis (Willow Emerald Damselfly) and is used to record 'tracks' on plant stems where eggs have been laid. These are typically seen in the winter and care is advised not to allow these records to confuse the adult flight period phenology of the species.