Photographic record sources Having finally worked my way through a big backlog of URLS to follow up photos posted on Flickr, I thought it might be instructive to see how the various sources contribute to the overall photographic dataset. I have done this to some extent in previous posts but at the end of 2014 this seems a good time to reflect on the success of the UK Hoverflies page. As can be seen from Figures 1 & 2, most data came from iSpot and Flickr until the end of 2013. 2014 shows a big change, with Facebook dominating and Flickr becoming far less significant in terms of overall contributions. This initial analysis is perhaps misleading though because the number of records harvested in 2014 is about double that of previous years (Figure 3). Clearly the Facebook page has had a huge influence and has recruited many new contributors. Some contributors will have come from Flickr and therefore their contributions effectively transfer from Flickr to Facebook. What is rather less clear is how contributions from other sources have changed. I rarely visit Wild About Britain these days, and so the few records for 2014 are absorbed into the general records from other internet sources. Equally, I have largely ceased trawling for blogs with records, although I might resume this winter if I run out of jobs to do! The change in the way data are supplied means that it is quite difficult to put 2014 into perspective against previous years but I shall attempt to do so over the Christmas break. I have a feeling that in broad terms 2014 was probably on a par with 2013, and both were somewhat less productive than 2012, which seems to have been quite a good year for hovers, despite quite prolonged wet periods. My suspicion is that a combination of warm and wet may well be favourable to many hovers that are photographed - I will have to look at relative proportions of eristalines and Syrphini I guess. It is my intention to develop a full analysis in January and to post a report here. Festive greetings to all - if there are sunny spells it is worth nipping out because some hovers may well be around!
Posted on: Fri, 19 Dec 2014 09:43:16 +0000