Easter competition

10-04-2019

Following the success of our Christmas competition, we are excited to announce that we are now running an Easter spotting competition! Starting today (Wednesday the 10th of April), we will be adding some novelty, Easter-themed pictures into the MammalWeb UK data set. If you find one, save it to your local device, classify it as “Other” and email it to us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Everyone who finds one will get an honourable mention when we announce the results. We are particularly grateful to our friends at NatureSpy, who have very generously donated three Browning Command Ops Pro camera traps as prizes for this competition. This incredible generosity means that we can offer one of these camera traps as a prize to each of the first three Spotters who send us the novelty Easter photo that they found (up to a limit of one camera per person)! NatureSpy will also be offering discounts on camera traps to MammalWeb participants. Check out their shop here, and watch for further news on how to access the discounts soon!

MammalWeb UK hits 100% classified

10-04-2019

In March, we reached a major milestone. Specifically, for the first time since the MammalWeb UK project began, we reached a point at which every image sequence submitted to the MammalWeb UK project had been classified at least once! This is a great achievement and we’d like to thank everyone who has contributed classifications, as well as Helen, whose tireless work on the web platform has made Spotting such an effortless (and, we think, addictive) process!

Although MammalWeb UK is now just one of the projects on the site, it remains the project to which most people contribute data. At the point when all sequences had been classified at least once, it included almost 80,000 sequences from over 300 sites. As you can see from the detailed map (in which the MammalWeb UK sites are shown in red, overlying blue sites from other projects), survey efforts remain dominated by sites in the North East of England, where the project began. Zooming out to the UK map, however, you can see that MammalWeb UK is continuing to expand. If you are, or know, a camera trapper elsewhere in the country, please do upload your camera trap photos/encourage others to do so. This way we can continue to expand our coverage, and consequently learn more about mammal ecology across the UK.

At the point at which all image sequences had been classified at least once, the data suggest that about 62% of the sequences contained identifiable animal life. So, what do they contain? As you can see from the graph on the left below, the most frequently sighted animal is the grey squirrel which, as many of you will know, is an invasive non-native species. Nevertheless, there are a number of native species that appear frequently, including roe deer in about 1 in every 12 sequences you view, and badger or red fox in about 1 in 18 sequences. Bear in mind that these statistics are based on what species people have said are in sequences. As we get more classifications per sequence and more conviction regarding what is pictured, this could change.

A more intriguing picture arises when we consider the number of sites at which different species have been photographed (see graph on the right below). This suggests that roe deer and red fox are actually more geographically widespread in our data than are grey squirrels. This probably arises because they are more wide-ranging: when grey squirrels are active around a camera, they are usually very busy, generating lots of image sequences; roe deer and red foxes turn up at more cameras – but don’t linger by the camera for so long.

As contributors are increasingly trapping in other parts of the country, these patterns will almost certainly change. We have recently seen muntjac in the data set from a site in Worcestershire, as well as fallow deer from a site in South Wales. Who knows what other species we might see as the project continues to expand?

Website modifications

16-03-2019

Probably our most requested feature is the ability for Spotters to zoom in to images to take a closer look.  We're really excited to report that the ever-brilliant Helen at Rhombus Technology has just implemented that feature!  When you're spotting, look out for the 'full screen tool' in the bottom right of the image display (where the red arrow is pointing in this picture).

 

We note that some versions of iOS and Safari don't have the full screen capability.  In those cases, the tool should not display.  You should, however, be able to zoom manually.

Another change in this release is that, on the projects page, you now click on the photo representing any project to find out more about that project and its subprojects.  And, of course, in case you'd missed it, you can also navigate to any project of interest via the project pages and click "Classify this project", in order to specify exactly the collection of photos you wish to classify.

Let us know how you get on with these changes and if you notice anything that doesn't work as it should. As always, you can reach us by emailing This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Highland Red Squirrel Project Update

07-02-2019

Last summer many of you helped classify photos in the Highland Red Squirrel Project. The project focussed on the understanding of, and potential mitigation for, forest operations on red squirrels, and was run by a team based at the University of the Highlands and Islands in collaboration with Forest Enterprise Scotland. With your help, all images in the project were classified, and now the team have had chance to analyse the data, they would like to share with you the results! Click here to read the report.

Camera trapping in Deerness woods, County Durham

06-02-2019

One of our trappers, Roland, has written a report about his findings from camera trapping in his local woods over the past two years. In the report, he writes about the species that have been captured on his camera traps, which he has put out at 62 different locations in the Deerness woods, County Durham. This includes camera traps that he modified to be used to photograph small mammals, which you can read more about on our "Projects" page, under the "Small Mammal Camera Trapping" project. We'd like to say thank you to Roland for sharing this great report with us, and providing MammalWeb with many lovely photos, such as the ones below, to classify over the last few years! You can read the report by clicking here.

   

How to tell the difference between deer species

06-02-2019

There are six species of deer in the UK: roe deer, red deer, fallow deer, Reeve's Muntjac deer, sika deer and chinese water deer. In County Durham, by far the most common deer species we capture on our camera traps is the roe deer. However, as MammalWeb starts to collect images from new camera trap sites across the country, you may come across some different deer species whilst spotting. Telling the difference between deer species can sometimes be tricky, so we've summarised some key facts for all six species in the graphic below.

 

When classifying camera trap photos here are some key things you can look for to help you decide which deer species it is.

  • Size: The size of deer species varies greatly. The red deer is the largest species, with a shoulder height of up to 137 cm in males and 122 cm in females. Reeve's Muntjac deer and chinese water deer are the smallest, with a shoulder height of only 50-55 cm. In low level light roe deer and red deer (particularly females) can appear similar, so one way to determine which species it is would be to look at the size of the animal, as roe deer are smaller than red deer. You could look at background objects in camera trap photographs, such as trees or fence posts, to get an idea of scale.
  • Rump and tail: The colour, pattern and size of the rump and tail varies between all six deer species, so if you have a camera trap photo of the back end of the animal, this is a great way to tell the different species apart. 
  • Coat: The coat colour and pattern varies between deer species. However, there can be variation in coat colour and pattern within a species, and most species have different coat patterns in the summer and winter. So don't solely rely on coat colour to distinguish between species, but rather look at it in parallel with all of the other features.
  • Antlers: If it is a male deer with antlers, then the size and shape of antlers can tell you which species you are looking at.

If you would like more information on deer species in the UK, and the differences between them, here are some links to some great resources:

The Mammal Society's "Discover mammals" page: https://www.mammal.org.uk/species-hub/full-species-hub/discover-mammals/

The British Deer Society's "Deer Species" page: https://www.bds.org.uk/index.php/advice-education/species

NatureSpy's article on "What are the different British deer species?", which includes some lovely camera trap footage: https://www.naturespy.org/2016/07/what-are-the-different-british-deer-species/

 

Last festive picture found!

04-01-2019

Congratulations to Justine Thompson, who found the final seasonally-adjusted MammalWeb picture! This means that all three pictures have now been found, so congratulations to all our prize-winners: Elliot Tebbs, Clive Moulding and Justine Thompson.  Their prizes will soon be in the mail!

More generally, thanks to everyone who has contributed massively to Spotting over recent weeks.  Over the last month, a fantastic 12,000 sequences have been classified for the MammalWeb UK project!  For the first time ever, we are now teasingly-close to having all MammalWeb sequences classified at least once.  That's a huge achievement.  Keep an eye on the project page to watch our progress towards that goal.  You will also see that NatureSpy have uploaded a new batch of images from their cameras in the North York Moors.  Their baited traps have yielded some beautiful pictures already, with red foxes a common visitor; what else might be in there?

 

Festive competition update

03-01-2019

We're pleased to report that two of the three modified photos have now been found.  One was found on the evening of the 2nd of January, whilst another was found this morning.  How long will it be before the third is tracked down?  Keep spotting, and let's hope it turns up before the 12 days of Christmas are over!  Two camera traps will soon be on their way to the lucky winners so far.  Could you be the recipient of the third?

Thanks – and a Camera trap giveaway!

22-12-2018

As we approach the end of 2018, we wanted to say a huge THANK YOU to everyone who has contributed to MammalWeb over the past year!  It has been a tremendous year for Mammal monitoring in the north east of England – and increasingly further afield.

At the start of this year, 70 Trappers had deployed cameras at 227 sites, uploading 55,192 sequences, for which 257 Spotters had submitted 92,972 sequence-classifications (representing 40,374 unique sequences, or 73% of the sequences in the system).

As of today, 97 Trappers have now deployed cameras at 430 sites, uploading 122,742 sequences, for which 473 Spotters have submitted 208,229 sequence-classifications (representing 110,139 unique sequences, or 90% of the sequences in the system).  This is tremendous growth in our efforts to find out more about where our wild mammals occur, what they do and what affects that.  Next year promises to be much bigger!

This year has also seen the publication of our first paper, led by Pen, discussing how we can be confident about what species are pictured in the sequences you trap.  This was a collective effort by everyone who has contributed to MammalWeb – so well done to all of you!  Another major achievement was Sammy’s rigorous survey of the whole of County Durham.  Thanks to everyone who made a huge effort to get so many of the images from that survey classified in such a short space of time!  Thanks to you, Sammy was able to present her preliminary results at the recent meeting of the British Ecological Society.  You can expect to hear more about that study over the coming year.  We have also welcomed two new people – Sian Green and Jonathan Rees – to the MammalWeb team, as well as multiple new collaborating organisations, and you can expect to hear more about their work over coming months.

We look forward to a very exciting 2019.  There are some great developments in the pipeline, and you can expect to see some fabulous site improvements very soon …

For now, however, we’d just like to say a big THANK YOU again and to wish you all the best for a very merry Christmas and a happy new year!  As a token of our appreciation, there are now 3 sequences on the platform that have been modified in recognition of the season (the picture below is a hint!).  If you come across one of those between now and the 12th day of Christmas (specifically, midnight on the 6th of January), you will win a brand new camera trap!  If you see one of the modified sequences, please classify it as “Other” and send a copy of the picture to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..  You can download it by right-clicking and choosing “save image” (or similar, depending on your browser).  Happy hunting, and have a great holiday!

Prizes for classifying photos on the County Durham Survey project!

08-11-2018

For every classification you do on the County Durham Survey project between Mon 12/11/2018 17:00 and Mon 26/11/2018 17:00, you’ll get one ‘ticket’ in a prize draw to win either a £100 Amazon voucher, or one of two £50 Amazon vouchers! The more classifications you do during this time, the more chance you’ll have to win a prize!

You can read more information about the project over on our Projects page. To start classifying, simply log in as a MammalWeb spotter, and select "County Durham Survey" from the dropdown "Select a project box".

If you have any questions then please don't hesitate to get in contact by emailing us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Happy spotting!