Field Recorder Days

Our Field Recorder Days are a core part of our mission to get more people observing wildlife and submitting their data into biological recording systems. On each Field Recorder Day, we coordinate a group of naturalists to survey a green space and make biological records. We use iRecord as our recording platform of choice to ensure that our records get to the relevant Local Environmental Records Centre and National Recording Scheme/Society. Beginners through experts are welcome, and subject specialists are on-hand to provide identification support and mentoring throughout the day.

Are you booked to attend one of our Field Recorder Days? Then check out our Info for Field Recorder Day Attendees page for everything that you need to know in advance of your event.

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London Field Recorder Day Programme

All of our London Field Recorder Day events are free to attend, and all of the data is collated through iRecord and shared with Greenspace Information for Greater London (GiGL). We work closely with the London Natural History Society and they partner with us on our Field Recorder Day programme.

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Information for Field Recorder Day Attendees

For details on start/finish times, meeting points, getting to the event, toilets and any other event-specific information, please check your booking confirmation email and/or event reminder emails.

For details of what to bring with you and guidance on submitting biological records, check out our Info For Field Recorder Day Attendees page.

If you have any questions unanswered by the above information, please don’t hesitate to get in touch via emailing info@biologicalrecording.co.uk

Check out our iRecord: An Introduction and iRecord: Tools For Recorders guidance pages for more information on using iRecord.

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London Recording Projects

Our London Field Recorder Day programme started in 2023 and has involved working with a range of partners, including London Natural History Society, Citizen Zoo, Ealing Wildlife Group, Friends of Grove Farm, Kingston Council and various London borough councils. You can find the project reports and details of these various projects below.

We’re always looking for new projects and recording initiatives to get involved with, so get in touch if you have a project that you think would benefit from a Field Recorder Day programme! We have a large network of naturalists and are happy to discuss the recording of any and all species groups!

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The Ealing Beaver Project

A family of five Eurasian beavers was officially released into Paradise Fields in Ealing in 2023. This marked the UK’s first fully accessible urban beaver reintroduction – a flagship conservation project – and was the outcome of years of planning orchestrated by The Ealing Beaver Project, a partnership between the Ealing Wildlife Group, Citizen Zoo, the Friends of Horsenden Hill and Ealing Council.

Thanks to funding from the Mayor of London’s Rewild London Fund, the Biological Recording Company delivered a series of Field Recorder Days at the site prior to the release of the beavers. In 2026, we are delighted to be returning to Paradise Fields (thanks to the HS2 Community and Environment Fund) to give naturalists an opportunity to record the wildlife in the ‘post-beaver’ landscape. It will be very interesting to see what we find which is new! We have five Field Recorder Days booked in for 2026.

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Hammersmith & Fulham Biological Recording Project

The Biological Recording Company is working in collaboration with Hammersmith and Fulham Council to deliver a series of six Field Recorder Days at green spaces around the borough in 2026. These include days focused on botany (Ravenscourt Park), beetles (Hammersmith Park and Wormholt Park), bugs (Bishops Park), plant galls (Margravine Cemetery), fungi (Wormwood Scrubs) and earthworms (South Park and Hurlingham Park). Sign up for the events using the link below!

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Welsh Harp Biological Recording Project

In collaboration with Citizen Zoo and Barnet Council we are running a series of Field Recorder Days at Welsh Harp open space, a large reservoir with adjoining green spaces in north London, in 2026. We have scheduled days focused on earthworms, invertebrates, botany, plant galls and fungi.

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Wild Tolworth

Tolworth Court Farm, in the borough of Kingston, is currently undergoing an ambitious rewilding intervention led by the organisation Citizen Zoo – the ‘Wild Tolworth’ project. As well as the rewilding interventions themselves, Wild Tolworth aims to engage urban communities and local residents with the site’s wildlife to inform how the site is managed. As part of this side of the work, we at the Biological Recording Company have delivered a series of Field Recorder Days at Tolworth Court Farm to engage local naturalists and document the site’s biodiversity. Between 2023 and 2025 we have led eight Field Recorder Days focused on invertebrates, pollinators, grasses, sedges and rushes, dragonflies, fungi, beetles and flies. In 2026 we are returning to the site for another Invertebrate Field Recorder Day in September.

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Lesnes 500

During 2025 and 2026, the Biological Recording Company collaborated with the London Borough of Bexley to deliver a series of Field Recorder Days at Lesnes Abbey Woods, a large woodland in south London, famous for its ruined abbey. These Field Recorder Days were commissioned as part of Lesnes 500, a large-scale project made possible with a grant from the National Lottery Heritage Fund. Lesnes 500 commemorates 500 years since the ‘dissolution’ of Lesnes Abbey (when it stopped functioning as a formal abbey), and aims to engage local communities with Lesnes Abbey Woods through a range of events focused on heritage, creativity, nature and education. We ran events focused on meadow botany, plant galls, fungi, beetles and molluscs, as well as a ‘General’ Field Recorder Day as a finale to the programme in May 2026.

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Hogsmill Valley

The Biological Recording Company was commissioned by Kingston Council to deliver a series Field Recorder Day events at the Hogsmill Valley in south-west London between 2023 and 2025. The ‘Hogsmill Valley’ is a series of five neighbouring green spaces and nature reserves along the Hogsmill River, a chalk stream in the London Borough of Kingston. The five constituent sites are Rose Walk, Elmbridge Meadows, Hogsmill Wood, Southwood Open Space and Six Acre Meadow.

As of June 2025, the Hogsmill Valley Recording Project is now completed. The series of events engaged 94 people and generated 888 records of 392 species, including one species (a fly) new for Britain!

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Southwark Biological Recording Project

The Biological Recording Company was commissioned by Southwark Council to deliver a programme of three Field Recorder Days in 2025 as part of a wider programme of free-to-attend biodiversity learning opportunities within the London Borough of Southwark. We ran days focused on beetles (Burgess Park), botany (Belair Park and Dulwich Park), and earthworms (various sites). In 2026 we also returned to Southwark for another Beetle Field Recorder Day, this time at Stave Hill Ecological Park.

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