This tutorial demonstrates how to add a named Site (for example, one where you regularly watch wildlife) to your FieldNotes database. Adding details of your favourite sites will speed up recording and also provide more environmental context to your wildlife observations.
Before starting you will need to know ...
It is also be useful to know:
This tutorial assumes that FieldNotes software has already been installed and setup on your computer (see previous tutorials for help on installation and setup).
Adding a new wildlife Site to your database is a straightforward process that involves completing a handful of fields in a single form.
The quickest way of opening the 'New Site' form is to ensure that the record-type selector is set to Sites, and select the button on the main toolbar.
The 'New Site' form is displayed, containing a number of fields used to record a new wildlife Site. Certain field values are initialised with values based on the current session.
Field | Notes | |
---|---|---|
(Site) Name | Your unique name for this site | |
Record Sensitivity | Site Sensitivity assessment | |
OS Grid Reference | Relevant OS grid reference | |
Online map check | Check OS grid reference using online map resources | |
County | County in which theis Site resides | |
Notes | Additional notes | |
Recorder | Recorder name | |
Help | Field-content information | |
Save | Save data as new record | |
Cancel | Cancel the form |
Again, note that several fields have a pastel background - either pale red ("Site name") or pale blue ("OS Grid Reference", "Recorder"). The background colour indicates how important it is to provide data for a particular field - mandatory fields are essential for creating a valid record, whilst advisory fields provide important or useful information for subsequent processing. In general it is good practice to provide as much information (ie. complete as many fields) as possible.
Check that the level-of-detail (displayed on the right-hand edge of the form title) is set to 'Quick'. If it is not, select the appropriate checkbox.
In this case level-of-detail affects the number of input fields displayed in a form. The relevant Help library pages contain more detailed information about using level-of-detail.
Sections 1-7 below describe the steps in completing the 'New Site' form from scratch.
Type the name you have chosen for this site in the "Name" field.
Site names may contain any combination of letters, numbers, spaces and punctuation - you can use existing place names (eg. Kynance Pool), descriptive names (eg. My Bird Table) or a naming scheme of your own (eg. Esth1.1).
Site Sensitivity is a rough measure of how sensitive (at risk of disturbance) or unusual a site is; in most cases the two are fairly closely related. If your Site is representative of a relatively common habitat type, for example, a garden or field, it's sensitivity is likely to be low and you may even ignore this field. However if your Site is representative of a more unusual (or declining) habitat type, or one that is sensitive to disturbance, for example, a hedgerow or sandy heathland site, you should consider setting the Site Sensitivity value rather higher. These settings will allow you to withhold details for sensitive sites when creating reports and selecting datasets for export. Further information on relevant settings is provided in the Site form Help page.
During Site data-entry, FieldNotes will provide appropriate warnings if threatened (BAP Priority) habitat types are recorded with an inappropriately low sensitivity value.
In order to identify the Site location precisely you must provide an Ordnance Survey grid reference. You may be able to find this in a report or description of the area, by using a hand-held GPS unit (which are now included in many mobile phones), or from a large-scale map. If you are unsure of the OS grid reference but know the location, there are several ways of looking it up:
Any OS grid reference from 6-figure (100m-square precision) to 10-figure (1m-square precision) precision can be used. Many GPS units and online mapping resources provide eight-figure (10m-square precision) or ten-figure (1m-square precision) OS grid references, which can be used without modification.
If you have purchased copies of the Ordnance Survey 1:50,000 Map Tiles (or an equivalent product), selecting the
button (left of the "OS Grid Reference" field) will provide a map interface in which you can load the relevant background map tile(s) and select the Site location using the cursor location. More information on using the map-picking interface is given in subsequent tutorials.Select the county in which the site is located from the drop-down list.
County data may be used as a coarse screening tool, and also as an approximate check for valid grid coordinates.
The 'Notes' field is free-text format - you may enter as little or much additional information as you like. For example, you may wish to include notes on how to find the site, how best to approach it or the best time to visit.
The 'Notes' field will automatically scroll to provide more space for your entry if required. Alternatively double-click anywhere on the field to use a larger data-entry form.
For convenience, the "Recorder" field is preset with the current FieldNotes user.
However if this Site description was provided by someone else, you may prefer to include their name in this field instead.
To update the field contents, either:
6(i). Simply delete the existing value and type in the name of the person who described this Site:
6(ii). Alternatively, use the
button to view a list of recorders entered into the database.Pick the appropriate recorder name (by double-clicking - this will add the name to the 'Selected' list on the left-hand side of the form), then press the
button to enter this value into the relevant field on the 'New Site' form.Take a moment to check that the data you have entered is correct, and agrees with your field notebook information.
Pressing the
button will save the information you have entered as a new database record. Before the information is saved, however, FieldNotes will carry out a number of internal consistency checks on the values you have entered, and warn you if changes are required (eg. if the Site date is invalid or ambiguous) or desirable (eg. if advisory fields that have not been completed). If error or warning messages are generated, you will have the opportunity to correct the values you have entered before the record is saved.Your Site information is now saved as a record in the database. Later tutorials will show you how to create reports and plot maps referencing your wildlife Sites.
Error / Warning Message | Cause | |
---|---|---|
Error | <Site Name> field must be given a value | The 'Site Name' field has not been completed. |
Error | <Site Name> value duplicates an existing record | The Site name is identical to an existing record. |
Error | <OS grid reference> field must be given a value | The 'OS grid reference' field has not been completed. |
Warning | <OS grid reference> is not a valid OS Grid reference | The OS Grid reference value is not valid. |
Warning | <Recorder> does not match any existing records | The Recorder name does not match any known Recorders in the FieldNotes database. |
See relevant sections above for details of valid values.
You can create a map of all wildlife Sites currently entered in the FieldNotes database using the following three steps:
Set the record-type selector (on the Toolbar) to Sites then select the taskbar button - a list of all Site records will be displayed in the data-view window.
A map containing all current Site records is displayed in the map-view window. You may wish to add background maps (OS Map Tiles, VC boundaries, etc) to increase contextual relevance - details of how to do this are provided in later tutorials.