Local Experts

You're welcome to contact us if you can't find a Local Expert on this page, so we can check if there is one for the species you've recorded. For many less frequently recorded species groups there are only experts at a national level. To find out more about a National Recording Scheme or Society visit the Biological Records Centre website.

If you already share your data with local experts and we are able to access this data, there's no need to share it with us. Please contact us if you are unsure if the relevant local expert shares data with us. Sometimes this will be via the relevant National Scheme and Society who they represent. To find out more about a National Recording Scheme or Society visit the Biological Records Centre website.

Many of the records we hold require verification before they are available for use in data exports. Local Experts are assigned records to verify if they fall within a particular  geographic area and species group for which they have responsibility. Some are marked as High Priority for various reasons - Low Priority ones may be used without verification and are usually of relatively easily identified species.  Local Experts are able to access relevant records within the Cofnod ORS. High Priority (for verification) records will be looked at carefully and a decision reached as to what Verification Level is appropriate. Sometimes the Local Expert will need to contact you for more information as they won't be able to make a decision based on the information supplied. If you have submitted your record using the ORS this is likely to be via a direct email from the Local Expert. 

Watsonian Vice Counties were originally defined by H.C. Watson in 1852, and are based on ancient county boundaries, sometimes divided into smaller units. Their borders don't change as modern county boundaries do, so consequently they are ideal for use in biological recording as they allow records for a single area to be compared over time.