The Big Count FAQ

Anyone can take part in The Big Count! In fact, we need as many people as possible to join in to help collect more information on Somerset’s species. There are gaps in our knowledge about these species that we need your help to fill. You can take part as a group, club, school class, or just by yourself! No matter your age, we hope you’ll join us in finding out more about Somerset’s wildlife. 

• You can sign up to the project (and download your free info pack and ID guide) here. 

• Once you’ve signed up, your mission is to keep your eyes peeled between 16th and 25th June, and if you see one of our special species (details in your info pack!), try to snap a photo of it on your phone. 

• You’ll then need to join our iNaturalist project here and upload your sightings onto iNaturalist. More information on how to do this is available in your info pack. 

• Local green spaces. From visiting green spaces like Taunton's Longrun Meadow, your town's local park or simply your own garden, The Big Count is something you can do anywhere in Somerset!
• Somerset Wildlife Trust Reserves. From heathland to wetland, stunning open spaces to hidden gems, discover our best sites for nature across Somerset. We're proud that our nature reserves are inviting places for people who want to walk in nature. You can toggle the search view to see which reserves might be best for certain species groups, or just filter by distance to your home. Search for a reserve >

Yes! This project is hosted through iNaturalist, and you will need to sign up to an account in order to take part in this project. We have chosen to use iNaturalist as it’s an excellent, well-regarded platform for recording wildlife data. It can also be accessed using either your phone or a desktop. We have advice on how to get started with iNaturalist here. 

When signing up to iNaturalist, you will need to consent to sharing some information with the platform — this includes the photos you upload and some personal information such as your email address. You can find out more about this within iNaturalist’s FAQs here, and you can read the privacy policy here.  

Yes! Seek is another wildlife recording app which is particularly popular with families and young people. If you prefer using Seek instead of iNaturalist, you are welcome to do so, and your observations will still contribute to the project. However, you will need to make sure your Seek observations are being uploaded to iNaturalist too. 

If you’re not sure which app is right for you, you can find out more about the differences between Seek and iNaturalist here. 

No! Having a photo of what you’ve managed to spot is helpful as it will allow us and others within the iNaturalist community to confirm the sighting. iNaturalist observations without photos will be marked as ‘casual’ by iNaturalist, not ‘research grade’, however they will still appear on our Big Count map on iNaturalist. 

If you can’t take a photo (e.g. if your subject is too far away), another alternative is to take a sound recording of what you’ve managed to spot — which you can also upload to iNaturalist to help confirm your sighting. 

It’s important that we record species abundance as part of The Big Count. That means that if you see multiple species in one place (e.g. three goldfinches in your garden), it’s important that you upload each record separately — so if you see three goldfinches, we would advise that you create three iNaturalist observations. 

SERC save and download the data records the public collect at the end of this project. This will be added to the data that’s been received over the past 3 years of the count, we then analyse what’s been recorded to looking into species trends and gaps. The data collected is vital in telling somersets story and telling the state of its nature, this will help contribute towards our next Somerset State of Nature report.

Seen a species not in the project but still want to record it? You can add any record onto iNaturalist still and we would encourage this, the more that’s recorded the better. If you have the time to, SERC has it’s own Online Recording System (ORS) Submit Data - Somerset Environmental Records Centre; records added here go straight into our data searches. These searches help ecologists, consultants and developers discover what species are within their area and help guide them towards knowing what management should be undertaken. We are particularly interested in protected species e.g bats, badgers and newts.