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LINKS
 to websites relevant to
 RALPH HOLLINS WILDLIFE NEWS

Index to the sections of this page

BIRDS INSECTS PLANTS FUNGI MIXED LOCAL BLOGS MAPS WEATHER Conservation Organisations Miscellaneous sites

Bird Links


HOS Hampshire Bird News
The above link takes you to the Hampshire Sightings page of the Going Birding website which provides a similar news service for Berkshire and provides links to birding news sites in most counties of the UK. The first page you will see via this link is the Hampshire News for the current day and you can work back for a month or more using 'Previous Day'.

To see news for other counties click 'Home' at top left of page, then click a county on the map shown
To see photos submitted by Hampshire birders click 'PHOTOS' below the header picture (click 'BIRD NEWS' to return)

To submit sightings or photos click 'Register' at top right of page
Join HOSLIST Yahoo Hampshire Bird News message group
The HOSLIST message group will give you a mixed bag of information related to birding in Hampshire. Some of it may not be of any interest to you but if you do not join the group you will miss a lot (not all sightings appear in the Going Birding website, and that does not carry the comment and background info that you get via HOSLIST which also allows you to send personal replies to the originator of any message and so establish personal contact with them)

You can receive HOSLIST messages in two ways - as copy emails sent to you as soon as the original message is received by Yahoo, or by scanning the same messages on the Yahoo website (the second method avoids having your email Inbox cluttered with messages that do not interest you but the Yahoo website is notoriously overloaded and slow!)
SOS Sussex Bird News
The link above takes you to the SOS Home Page - to go direct to the Sightings Page click Latest Sussex Bird Sightings

Dorset Bird Club news
Isle of Wight bird news from Derek Hale
Portland Bird Observatory
Dungeness Bird Observatory
Christchurch Harbour Ornithological Group
Devon Birding
Cornwall Birding
Scilly Isles Birding
WWT Slimbridge News

Click the date for which you want to see news, read it, then return to this page via the BACK button (or ALT + Left Arrow), to select another Date

To see news from other WWT sites Click HOME on the bar at the top of the page then Click the site on the map of the UK and on that Site's page Click NEWS on the Left of the Page (Not all sites provide current birding news!)
North-west Europe Bird News
The Trekellen site presents current migration data from sites throughout Europe and allows you to see it in a number of ways. (Select the language for species names etc by clicking the country flags at top right of the Trektellen screen)

1. By Country, showing the latest full report from each site within that country in date sequence

To see these reports click the Country Name on the top line, then click the date of each count you want to see

2. 'Remarkable' sightings only

To see these click Remarkable on the second line then select the date (last five days only) you are interested in from the drop down box - the data for all remarkable entries (only) is shown in species order. Submitters of the data decide what is remarkable for that site.

3. Sites at which a selected species has been seen in a given period, and in what numbers

Click 'Migration Pattern' on the second line, then, in the box presented, select ... Species (from drop down list)
'Part of year'
'Numbers'
In left drop down list 'Europe' for full overview and in right drop down list 'All sites'
All parts of start and end date for chosen period
In 'Scale' box select 'Automatically' All sites appear on the map - those with no records of the species are white circles - those with records are green and the size of the circle indicates the number recorded there. By moving the cursor over the circle you will see the actual number total for the period but cannot find the dates on which they were seen.

4. A graph showing the numbers of a species observed at the selected site(s) in each week of the year

Click 'Graph' on the second line, then select ... Species, Country, Site, Year1, Year2, 'Year View', 'Numbers' then click 'Show Overview'
Note: Country is only relevant if selecting 'all sites' within the country. Year1 and 2 can be the same
Resulting graph shows week totals for each of two years (in blue and red)

5. Top 25 counts for a species from all available data within selected parameters (you cannot select a period)

Click 'Record Counts' on the second line, then select ... Country, Individual site (default is all sites), and species then click 'Show Overview'

6. Location of observation sites

Click 'Overview of Sites' on the second line, then select ... 'Europe' or individual country in top box, and
'All sites' or individual site in lower box
Note: Biggest map scale is achieved by selecting just one country
To see location of a specific site select that site only
Moving cursor over the red dot marking a site gives the site name
Clicking the red dot give the latest data from that site

Insect Links

 Butterfly and Moth News for Hampshire
Butterfly and Moth News for Sussex
The above two links are to pages with diary type day by day sightings info which is frequently updated (daily in the case of Sussex) during the butterfly season. From the diary pages you can access other parts of these websites (use links at top left of the Sightings page)
Mike Wall's Hampshire Moth info
National Moth info
These two sites provide detailed info about moth species (flight times, habitat, food plants, etc) and both have different and complementary information - well worth consulting both.

In both cases when the page first comes up the focus is set to a Search Box in which you enter the whole or part of a Moth Name or the B & F (Bradley and Fletcher) number of the species to locate the one you are interested in.

Plant Links

Hampshire Plant news
Select 'News' in left panel for upcoming events and recent finds

Select 'BSBI' in left panel (then select 'Maps scheme in Hampshire') to see species distribution maps

Fungi Links

Hampshire Fungus Recording Group

Mixed Species Links

Rye Bay area wildlife news
Durlston Country Park news
Select 'Durlston Today' in header panel for Rangers Diary

Local Links

Brian Fellows Wildlife Diary for the Emsworth area
John Goodspeed's Nature Notes for the Greater Portsmouth area

Three good Blogs

Three Amigos Blog
A first class site, regularly updated and with magnificent pictures, by three Hampshire birders who serve in the Royal Navy and who visit interesting birding sites around the world as well as in Hampshire. Visit this site and you'll be back for more!
Cliff Dean's account of birding in the Rye Bay area
The interest in this site is perhaps chiefly in its non-birding content. Cliff has wide-ranging interests, clearly written text and evocative pictures.
Lee Evans' news of all the latest bird rarities throughout the British Isles
As self appointed 'Head Birder of Britain' Lee has a reputation to keep up and he deserves top marks for doing so. Any birder who is interested in birds beyond his garden wall can learn a lot from what Lee has to say. Even if you have no interest in birds anyone having to drive on Britain's roads can benefit from the Link in the right hand column of Lee's page to a site giving news of the latest road traffic problems!

Weather Sites

BBC Weather Forecast for Portsmouth area

 Local Weather and Tides info for Chichester Harbour entrance
The screen which comes up shows you the current weather parameters - to see a graph of these parameters over the past 12 hours click 'More Details'

To see tide details click 'Tides' at right hand end of top line below CHIMET heading
Note The Tide information is shown on a new page and after viewing you must close that page by clicking the X at the extreme top right of the screen to return to the CHIMET page

By clicking one of the red dots on the area map you get the same details for that site

Map Sites

Where's the path?
When you access this site you have to Click 'OK' to a couple of messages before seeing the map screen but it is well worth getting through to it as it offers more facilities than any other map application that I am aware of (and I have made a small donation to back up that statement!!).
The main features of the site are outlined below but a thorough check of the options available will show that there is much more on offer than is described here.

The '?' symbol at top right of the screen gives you a 'Pop Up' HELP screen (you may have to hold down the CTRL Key while clicking it if your browser prohibits unwanted Pop Ups)

When the main screen does come up look first at the top left of the screen where you will see a box saying 'Enter a Place'. Replace this with one of several ways of selecting the area you want to look at, viz ...
A place name that appears on an OS Map or is known to Google or Streetmap, or
A grid reference (either OS type, e.g. SU 7210 or SU 724103, or the numerical version, or Lat and Long - see notes below on display of Grid Refs), or
A Post Code (e.g. PO9 or PO9 1AX). Note that the map will then centre on the Post Code area but will not show its boundaries, and there is an overall limit of 1000 Post Code look-ups per day so you may be unlucky.
Note: The scope of the maps avaiable cover the whole UK (but not southern Ireland nor the Channel Isles).
A map will now appear but it may be in one of several formats. You can select your preferred format using the Drop Down boxes at top left of the screen

In the left hand box you can select the format from a choice of ...


OS Map (Current or older versions from 1940s or 1930s)
Google Satellite images
Street Maps
OSM Cycle maps designed for cyclists, showing footpaths and contours indicating gradients
Google Earth 3D Maps for which you need a browser plug-in package
Split screen combinations of any two of the above (I find the OS Map plus Google Satellite image helpful)
Using the second drop down box (only present when in split screen mode) you can control the co-ordination of the maps when you 'Pan' (i.e. Drag one map using the mouse) and/or Zoom one of the maps. You can choose ...
'No Linking' (operations on one map do not affect the other)
'Panning' (Clicking and dragging one map wil be copied on the other without affecting the zoom level of either)
'Pan+Zoom' (Both Pan and Zoom operations on one map will be copied on the other)
'Pointer' (Every move of the cursor will automatically postion the centre of both maps to the current cursor position)
The third Dropdown box allows you to choose to have an OS GRID superimposed on the map (the whole screen if in 'Map only' mode or the right hand half of the screen if in split screen mode)

IN ALL MODES THE CURRENT CURSOR POSITION IS DISPLAYED AT THE BOTTOM RIGHT OF THE SCREEN AS SOME COMBINATION OF OS GRID REFERENCE (with two letter prefix indicating the 100 KM Square), the NUMERICAL ONLY FORM OF THIS GRID REFERENCE, or LATITUDE + LONGITUDE. By double clicking the box in which these appear you can toggle the options that are shown.

Route planning and distance measurement

These facilities are controlled by the boxes in the bottom left of the screen


The 'cock-eyed three sided square' symbol (call it *TSQ) initiates and ends a route definition. Click it, then click the point on the map where your route (or distance to be measured) starts. Now mark out the route by clicking each point at which you alter direction, and after clicking the end point of the route go back and click *TSQ again (note that the colour of the *TSQ changes to indicate when you are in route definition mode)
After completing the route definition you can double click the green 'start' node and then set the date and time of day when you intend to start the walk. Having done that you can double click the end node of the route to see the distance, the time taken (assuming you walk at a standard ramblers pace), and the amount of up and down gradient encountered during the walk. Sunset time on the specified day is also shown to indicate if you get to your destination in the daylight!.
Other facilities such as printing out details of the route are controlled by further buttons in this set and when you have optionally used these you can delete the route from the map by clicking the dustbin.
You can of course use these facilities just to measure the distance between two of more points for other purposes than walking the route.

Conservation Organisations

Hampshire Wildlife Trust
Hampshire Ornithological Society

Miscellaneous sites

Debbie Allan's (Gosport based) wildlife photos
David Fenwick's west country flora and fungi pictures
Stridvall European Flower Fungi and Lichen galleries
Stace's Interactive Flora of NW Europe

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