2k articles in under 2 years!

We are proud to annouce that we now have TWO THOUSAND articles on The British Wildlife Wiki!

Som areas are stronger than others but we are working to help make it better for everyone and provide the information and identification that you are looking for!

New Wiki Logo Competition!

Hello everyone! We would like to announce that we are opening a new competition today!

We would like you to design us a new logo for The British Wildlife Wiki! The current one is out dated and as The British Wildlife Wiki is coming up to 2, we thought it would be great to get the community involved and see what they could come up with! If you would like to design us a new logo please read the next few lines.

There are a few things that the logo should include:

1. Text saying - The British Wildlife Logo
2. Size: 250x65 pixels
   
3. Try to include animal(s), Plant(s) and Landscapes etc from the British Isles.
4. It must be colourful
5. All images must be all your own work and totally original!

All entries must be submitted by emailing them to thewwc@hotmail.co.uk by the 15th November.

The winning entry will be placed as the new logo on The British Wildlife Wiki and the winner will be notified on the 16th of November.

Unfortunately there are no runner-up prizes, so make the logo the best you can to ensure you win!

Have fun making your entry and we hope to see them soon!

New Logo Competition

The British Wildlife Wiki is nearly 2. We have been thinking of ways to get the community involved more on the wiki. We had a few ideas and the best one is a competition to design a new logo for the wiki. More details will be posted on the 15th October when the competition opens :)

October News!

Soon the staff at The British Wildlife Wiki will be heading to Sea Life Adventure in Southend-on-Sea. They will be taking lots of photographs they would not usually be able to take of all kinds of marine life.

New Feature on the wiki

Our favourite contributor 'Purple Centipede' has come up with a good way to let people know when certain invertebrates are active in the UK. He is making timelines which coinside with the Distribution maps that Thomas (XCF) started with. Check out his new idea here.

Keep up to date with all the latest info on our twitter feed here.

The Wiki in 2012

Hey Everyone! The Wiki is coming up to it's second birthday soon on the 17th November as the previous post outlines.

This Post is about changes and content coming to the wiki in the new year.

We will be uploading bat calls and bird songs that we have recorded (they are still in the editing stage at the moment). There will be lots more photos as well as some more anatomical diagrams. We also hope to double the size of the wiki next year so when the wiki reaches it's 3rd birthday, it will have 4000 pages!

So why not get editing on the wiki today?

http://britishwildlifeandnature.wikia.com/

The Wiki's Second Birthday (mid November 2011)

The wiki will be reaching it's second birthday soon so we are making alot of effort to get some important things done on the wiki. It will be 2 on the 17th November, but before I into detail about them, may I thank all those that have helped over the past year and 10 months make the wiki what it is today!

Things we are doing:

• Adding more articles so we have 2000.
• Adding more categories so the wiki is easier to navigate.
• Adding 100 more distribution maps to bird pages.
• Adding diagrams of animals internal, external and skeletal anatomy on category pages.
• Adding more photos and encouraging more people to upload their photos
  
• Encouraging more people to join in on the wiki

The wiki has come along way in the past two years. It has seen alot of people come and leave and will see many more in the future. Everyday it grows stronger with more information and photos and that is what we love doing, building it up to be one of the best on the internet!

August turns to September

It will soon be the autumn. Lots of wildlife will be migrating soon or getting ready for the harsh winter ahead!

Look out for lots of new features coming to the wiki soon!

August Updates

Hey everyone! It's been a while since I last made a post due to the overwhelming fact that I have been so busy! We have been up to so much that I havent been able to upload the photos yet.

We have been all around the Lee Valley area and hired out a boat for the day, travelling along the river taking photos of animals such as Grey Heron that were only a few yards away from the boat!

We have been to RSPB Rye Meads and saw lots of wonderful wildlife including a pair of Kingfishers, White-tailed Damselflies, Migrant Hawkers and many more! The shere number of Hawkers kept me busy as I waited for some to land. We als saw Cormorants, Common Terns and a huge range of wild flowers to name a few!

At Hainault Forest we heard more than we saw due to the weather. It was a blistering hot day and we didn't get down there until late morning so most of the birds were hiding in the shade. We did however manage to see many species of dragonflies and butterflies.

We have been to many other places as well in the 3 weeks that I havent made a post! Lots of wonderful photos will be coming to the wiki soon when i get back from a short holiday to visit some family.

Mammoth Wiki Task

We are trying to add 500 new pages on the wiki by the end of September and hopefully having 2000 pages by October if all goes well!

New Wiki Features

Sorry it's been a while since we made a decent blog post as we have been very busy recently!

We have now enabled some new features on the wiki such as:

1. Chat
2. New Look Page Editor

Chat

Chat enables you to talk to other members of the wiki community as it is a form of IM.

New Look Page Editor



When Wikia changed it's look to a more modern one, it left the old page design as it was, but now there is a new one! One that is more modern and easier to use!

Get used to these new features and happy editing!

Please note: The images above show the features mentioned on a different wiki to The British Wildlife Wiki

British Wildlife Centre

We had the best day ever at The British Wildlife Centre in Surrey. We saw everything from Harvest Mice to Red Deer. We got hundreds of photos and quite a few videos which will be uploaded to both YouTube and The British Wildlife wiki some time soon!

There is also a great new member on the wiki. His username is Purple Centipede and is doing a great job adding, categorising and adding photos to pages. Check out his Flickr Stream here.

Achievements

The British Wildlife Wiki Staff have made their own custom achievements on the wiki!
To earn them please edit pages in these categories:

1. Birds
2. Fish
3. Fungi
4. Trees
   
5. Wild Flower

There are different levels that you can achieve to earn different amounts of points.

Gold = 100 points
Silver = 50 points
Bronze = 10 points

Some hidden Platinum awards can be earned that are worth 250 points!

Our new Flickr Group

Why not check out our new Flickr Group?

http://www.flickr.com/groups/1722066@N23/

Classification and Taxonomy

Soon we will be adding categories to the wiki to place animals, plants and fungi in their correct phylums, classes, orders and genuses.

Also lots more photos and pages will be coming soon!

Our New URL

The new British Wildlife Wiki URL is: http://britishwildlifeandnature.wikia.com
You can still use the old address to access the wiki but it will be aventually phased out!

Good Luck
The British Wilddlife Wiki Team!

Beach Combing

Had a great day today at Jaywich Beach. Only went to check it out after such a long time and yet we found so much cool stuff!

1. Edible Crab Carapaces
2. Irregular Echinoid Tests
3. Dried Common Starfish
4. Dried Ray Egg cases

Lots of lovely pictures of our finds will be up on the wiki soon!

May Updates

This May we have some great news!
With the arrival of our first Top 10 page, members can now make their own on the wiki. Also we have made it so contributors can earn achievements on the wiki for doing their bit and maintaining the community.

Many photos of our collections coming soon on the wiki on the relevant pages! These will be uploaded as soon as we have finished cataloguing all of our collections from the past 6 years. This includes everything from bird pellets to bird nests and everything inbetween!

Lot more videos are coming to the wiki soon and bird song recordings!

Our New forum!

Check out our new forum! Link: http://bit.ly/mU5byO
Help us improve it by suggesting new boards and categories to add! Sign up now and join the community!

We aim to help identify wildlife found in Britain, give help to anyone struggling on the wiki, give general advice and give suggestions to people who wanna help on the wiki!

Wiki Improvements over the weekend

This weekend we are planning to update all of our old photos, add new photos and add distribution maps for British Mammals and a few more bird species.

The mammal maps will only have data from mainland Britain as that is all our researchers have been able to find!

NOTE
Wikia are updating their image servers as well over the next day or two so you wont be able to upload any images.

New Top 10 Lists

We have lauched our first Top 10 List on The British Wildlife Wiki. We would like you to vote for your favourite Garden Bird! If the bird you wish to vote for is not on the list... add it!
To vote please visit: http://bit.ly/kzZChP

New Wiki Layout

The British Wildlife Wiki now has a new layout on its main page!

Re-discovered Photos

Ever downloaded all the photos off of your cameras memory card to an external device, deleted all the photos and forgotten about all the ones on the external device? Well that's exactly what we have done! So now we are adding lots of new photos on the wiki from a few years ago!

So look out for new pictures coming your way! Also we have a new admin on the wiki. His name is Pete Barker and his job is:
Admin of Photographic Media on The British Wildlife Wiki.

This means that if there is an old photo of ours, 2009 Format, he will tell me and ill update it with an updated one.

May 2011

We are back from out trip to sunny Spain! We got lots of photos from a wildlife park of species that are found in Britain. These will be on the wiki shortly. We had fun and look out for new features coming to the wiki soon!

Iberian Trip

For the next two weeks we will be in Spain searching for reptiles and amphibians thats are rare and endangered in this country. This includes:

1. Sand Lizard
2. Smooth Snake
3. Pool Frog
4. Edible Frog
5. Great Crested Newt

We hope you all have a good Easter! We will post our success and photos will be up when we get back!

Bird Eggshell Guide and Sounds

Over the Weekend we have uploaded over 50 replica bird egg photos donated to us by Peter Rowland. They have been put on the Bird Eggshell Identification project page. They are in a jumbled order and the actual eggs my differ slightly from the the ones shown in the photos.

More info will be coming to the eggshell guide soon, with descriptions of the eggs including sizes and laws on the the different birds and their nests/eggs.

On a different note, we have uploaded 3 frog calls, from a Marsh Frog, Edible Frog and a Pool Frog. The recordings are short as the wind was blowing on the microphone at the time of the recording, but I picked the best bits and saved them. Bird songs are short to follow and you are free to download them from the wiki!

Have a great Easter,
The British Wildlife Wiki Team!

Southend Trip Success

After a successful day at Sea-life Adventure Southend, we are going to upload the photos and videos to the wiki! The centre has a variety of tropical and local fish species. We found out lots about all the species which will help us improve pages on the wiki. Also we saw a shark feed and went to lots of the talks held my members of staff.

Because of all of this over the next few days, photos, videos and information will be added to a variety of marine life pages.

( ^ Blue Mouth)

Half Term News

This Half Term we are improving the Tracks & Signs project on the wiki. The Bird Eggshell Identification Project will be started this week.

We are also going on many trips and working with all of our contributors to bring you even more photos, distribution maps and diagrams to the wiki over the next few weeks like never before!

If you would like to leave us any feedback please call: 0843 2891713

Wiki Updates April 2011

Thuis month we will be starting the Bird Bill Guide and the Bird Eggshell guide.
Also lots more wildlife morphology diagrams and lifecycle diagrams will be uploaded!

New Pages coming to The British Wildlife Wiki soon!

New pages coming to The British Wildlife Wiki later on this year:

1. Habitats in the UK
2. Insect Lifecycles
3. More WildWords
4. Domesticated Farm Animals (this is because they are often seen roaming fields or sometime escape into the wild)
   
5. Bird Egg Shell ID
   

If would like to see anymore pages please email us on: woodlandswildlifecouncil@yahoo.co.uk

Wiki Updates Late March

This week we have started to add updated versions of current photos on The Wiki. This is because they are of better quality and resolution and as they carry a copyright to them as well! More Distribution Maps and more articles on a variety of animals and plants!

Soon we will be adding a life cycle diagram or anatomy diagram for certain animals, mostly insects!

So keep and eye out for changes coming soon!

Youtube and Wiki Updates

YouTube

To visit our YouTube channel click here.

Over the next few weeks we will be uploading videos of British Wildlife for our new series British Wildlife Clips. These videos will also be on the corresponding page on The British Wildlife Wiki. In addition to these videos we are also going to be filming the second half of our 200 subscribers Special. The first half was filmed a fortnight ago and we may even have to go into 3 parts, depending on the weather conditions.

The aim is to catch 100lb worth of fish, as when we first got 100 we caught 100 animals in a day! But this was int he summer, and is its that late winter-early spring time we have decided to just catch at least 100lb.

The first part of this special will be uploaded shortly and the second part will be uploaded next week. A bloopers special has already been uploaded and im sure many more are to follow!

Wiki

To visit The British Wildlife Wiki click here.

This week we got some good news! The Bumblebee Conservation Trust has agreed to help us out on certain bee related pages and topics! Also any new photos we have taken whilst we have been filming the 200 Subscribers special will be on the wiki us well which includes waterfowl and pond life.

Youtube Success

Just over 2 years before we launched The British Wildlife Wiki, We made an account on Youtube. Today marks us getting subscribers.
In response to this we are going to make a special 200 subscribers video special with a twist!
Also lots more videos will be uploaded after this weekend after we go on a 36 hour long video hunt!

Steve

A big push on the Wiki

This half term we are editing alot of pages, adding alot of pages and photos and alot of admin work on the wiki to get it ready for next week when we appear on a local radio show where we will be telling everyone about The British Wildlife Wiki.

If you a page that you think needs improving email us at: thewwc@hotmail.co.uk

The British Wildlife Wiki
Admin Review Team (ART)

Dorset Trip and Radio Show

For the past 5 days, I have been in Dorset on a hunt for wildlife and the chance to get some shots of the local wildlife for The British Wildlife Wiki. So some new photos are going to be uploaded this week of all sorts of different things coming soon!

Also The British Wildlife Wiki is now sponsoring The Smithy Show on EchoRadio on Saturdays & Sundays at 3-5PM GMT.

Recent News

Due to recent events jobs on the wiki have been stalled. Our internet has been cut off for a few days so we couldn't do anything on the internet but what we have been doing is making new distribution maps and sorting out new photos ready for upload!

So now we have internet back, these maps will be added, the photos will be uploaded and we will continue work on Tracks & Signs!

New Pages coming soon to the Wiki!

This year we are aiming to improve the quality of our pages so many are having videos and many photos added to them in order to make them better.

We also want to add any new pages which outline thinks that people may not have a clear understanding of.

The new pages coming soon include:

1. Insect lifecycle pages
2. Spawn development
3. Pages on various habitats

More pages are going to WildWords as more technical terms are used on the wiki.

We aim to have at least one diagram or photo on each category page by the end of the year as well!

So there are lots to look out for and they are all going to happen sometime this year!

Teamwork makes lightwork of a large task!

This month we have teamed up with 2 photographic organisations to bring some top quality material and fantastic footage to the wiki!

PrimoPhotography

Link - http://www.flickr.com/photos/primophotography

Oliver who runs PrimoPhotography is a close personal friend. He has helped out with many image projects on the wiki and has more to come! He will be helping out with Distribution Maps and some other vital parts on the wiki.

Claxton Natural Images

Link - http://www.cn-images.co.uk/

We are going to be using some videos that have been expertly filmed and put together by Richard Claxton the founder of Claxton Natural Images. The videos have been kindly had permission to be put on the wiki and in the coming weeks, we shall upload them.

Updates on Tracks & Signs

The Tracks & Signs project will be started at the end of the month. Although some images have already been uploaded, we are still gathering photos and other images to help identify even more tracks and signs!

Wiki Updates: New Year 2011

Tracks and Signs will be started on within the next week or so.

From now on at least 15 maps will be uploaded a week and added to the corresponding pages. Channel Island maps have started to be added to pages and will continue so until all the necessary pages have them on.

We are also adding a new page on the developement of Frog Spawn over the next few days and for now will cover the first week of development.

If you wanna help on the wiki email us at woodlandswildlifecouncil@yahoo.co.uk