Recording Moths

Collecting records of moths in Hertfordshire (and Middlesex) is a major activity of the group.

This information is invaluable for conservation purposes locally and to feed into the National Moth Recording Scheme.

In 2008 the fruits of all this recording were published in Colin Plant's book "The Moths of Hertfordshire" (see right)

The recording effort does not stop there though and several new species have been added to the county list since then

The county database is held in Mapmate. Many recorders now submit records electronically and to help us get the records onto the database with the minimum effort (and danger of inputting errors!) it is very helpful if records can be supplied in one of three ways

Mapmate users

An output file in the MapMate import format is ideal. This format is not yet available in Mapmate but you can add it to your queries by copying the text below into a new user query in MapMate.

PARAMETERS [#vicecounty] Text; SELECT Records.[_guk], [Taxa\Default].Taxon, [Sites\Default].Name AS Site, [Sites\Default].OSGridRef AS Gridref, IIf([Sites\Default].ViceCounty>200,'H' & [Sites\Default].ViceCounty-200,[Sites\Default].ViceCounty) AS VC, Recorders.Name AS Recorder, Recorders_1.Name AS Determiner, IIf([Records].DateTo-[Records].Date<27,Format([Records].Date,"dd/mm/yyyy"),IIf([Records].DateTo-[Records].Date>32,Format([Records].Date,"yyyy"),Format([Records].Date,"mmm yyyy"))) AS [Date], Records.Quantity & IIf([*Sex]<>'u',' ' & [*Sex],'') AS Quantity, Methods.Method, TaxonSex.Sex, TaxonStage.Stage, RecordStatus.Status, Records.Comment FROM (((((((Records INNER JOIN [Taxa\Default] ON Records.[*Taxon] = [Taxa\Default].[_guk]) INNER JOIN [Sites\Default] ON Records.[*Site] = [Sites\Default].[_guk]) INNER JOIN Methods ON Records.[*Method] = Methods.[_guk]) INNER JOIN Recorders ON Records.[*Recorder] = Recorders.[_guk]) INNER JOIN Recorders AS Recorders_1 ON Records.[*Identifier] = Recorders_1.[_guk]) INNER JOIN TaxonStage ON Records.[*Stage] = TaxonStage.[_guk]) INNER JOIN RecordStatus ON Records.[*Status] = RecordStatus.[_guk]) INNER JOIN TaxonSex ON Records.[*Sex] = TaxonSex.[_guk] WHERE ([Sites].[ViceCounty] Like [#vicecounty]) AND (Year([Date])=[Enter a Year - eg 1999])

Excel users

If you record on many/most/all nights at a particular site and use a grid by species and date. The format below enables us to quickly move records into a MapMate import format. As long as one of logbook number, English or scientific name is present we can deal with the file

If you record less frequently or have casual records a format like this is ideal for loading into MapMate

Additional columns headed: Determiner, Method, Sex, Stage, Status, Comments may also be used if needed..

Recording Forms (for macro Moths)

If you do not wish to submit records electronically we offer some paper recording Forms. They are in Rich Text Format (rtf) which is viewable in most Word Processing Programmes.

You can save the forms to your computer by clicking the link and selecting 'Save as' in your browser.

IMPORTANT: All records are welcome whatever their format!