Hedgehog Hibernation Survey records

Quality Control

Records are submitted voluntarily by members of the public with a wide range of expertise. Sightings were not verified although the risk of misidentification is low for this species. The dataset should not be regarded as having a comprehensive geographical coverage, record distribution is likely to be biased towards populated areas. The dataset has been checked using the NBN record cleaner and as a result erroneous grid references were corrected or removed.

Method steps

1. Data were captured via a public-participation survey. Volunteers submitted records of hedgehogs observed between 1st February and 31st August of each year using an online form. As the hedgehog is an easily identified species, records were only excluded if the location details were not clear or obviously incorrect.

UK-wide. As the dataset was generated by volunteers and hedgehogs are most commonly observed in people's gardens or on roads the occurrence of records is likely to be biased towards populated areas. Most data were submitted with a postocde as the location, which were then converted to British National Grid format as 6-figure grid references for the centre of the postcode area. Some records were submitted directly as 6 or 8-figure grid references.