8 Million Records - a reason to celebrate!

It's always important to celebrate the milestone of another million records in the Cofnod database, while continuing to recognise that data quality is more important than quantity. Early in 2026 we passed 8 million records!

You might be surprised to know that 85% of the records in the Cofnod database come from sources which are predominantly volunteer collected data, including National Recording Schemes, County recorders and Individual recorders. Some of this data comes to us directly, either entered into the Cofnod Online Recording System or supplied as spreadsheets, whereas increasing number of records are exported from large online databases.

A very large proportion of data we currently hold comes from BirdTrack, with an increasing contribution by the internationally based eBird online recording system. The dominance of BirdTrack is evident from the word cloud below, which allocates a font size based on number of records we hold within the top twenty largest datasets. iRecord and our own Cofnod ORS ad hoc records dataset also make the top 20. Several of the datasets, and many more besides, are accessed via the NBN Atlas.

Also clear from the word cloud above is how important the numerous Vice-County Recorder datasets are. As well as collating data often on behalf of a National Scheme or Society, Vice-County Recorders have a cricical role in maintaining high data quality within the Cofnod database, through verification. Of the records available for use in our database (over 98% of what we hold), over 2.9 Million (almost 37%) have been verified as Known/Probably Correct by a Vice-County recorder or other Local Expert. The remaining 'live' records are not thought to require verification, being from a National Scheme/Society or similar (46%), or are low priority for verification but have passed a series of automated checks.

6.5% of the Cofnod database has been entered directly using the Cofnod ORS, and the table below gives an idea of the numerous different projects involved during the period 2022-2025. (The 'Blank' category refers to a number of individual datasets not grouped into a project on our database.)

We continue to work on streamlining data sharing locally and often on a Wales wide basis in collaboration with our Local Environmental Records Centres colleagues. A huge thank you to all individual and Vice-County Recorders, and to all organisations who share data with us, however many records are involved, your contribution really will make a difference to biodiversity conservation across North Wales.