Sunday 7th July | 10:00am - 1:00pm

Citizen Science: How to Conduct a Dragonfly / Damselfly Survey

What is citizen science?

We monitor the biodiversity across the Bore Place estate throughout the year, and we are looking for volunteers to help. Citizen science is when the public contributes to scientific research - you could be a species expert, or just someone with an interest. In 2024 we are offering is a series of FREE training sessions to learn to survey for our six key indicator species in a friendly and relaxed group setting. From there, you can then look to take on regular or ad-hoc voluntary surveys at Bore Place, to contribute meaningful data to our work.

Why have we got six key indicator species?

We are focusing our surveying efforts on a few species (or groups of species) to create a replicable and manageable way to monitor biodiversity at Bore Place. Indicator species give us clues about the condition of their environment, for example pollution or climate change, and monitoring populations of these species helps us to understand the wider health of the ecosystem.

No prior experience or knowledge is necessary. By undertaking our training sessions, you will be creating a team of trained and enthusiastic citizen scientists to help monitor and record the biodiversity at Bore Place - and hopefully beyond!

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Key information

18+ only 18+ only

Free Event

How to conduct a dragonfly/damselfly survey

Why are dragonflies and damselflies a useful indicator species?
We are grouping dragonflies and damselflies to survey them as indicators of healthy water quality. They are amphibious, freshwater insects, with larvae living underwater and adults emerging to live above water. Dragonflies and damselflies are dependent on clean, fresh water to lay their eggs in, and are sensitive to biophysical factors such as water oxygen levels, and pesticides and other water contaminants (for example, agricultural runoff) can therefore cause them to be absent from a habitat.

Their amphibious life cycle increases their value as an indicator species, as both habitats (in and around the water) need to be in good condition for dragonflies to thrive. For example, both water quality and adult shelter are dependent on surrounding vegetation, so the presence of dragonflies can indicate healthy biodiversity.

Our focus will be on dragonflies and the session will cover how to undertake dragonfly point counts.

This training session is one of our scheduled surveys - so by the end of the session, you'll already have contributed data to our research. Whilst your time is hugely valuable to us, taking part in any of our trainings and surveys will give you useful experience you can use elsewhere, too.

Places are limited for each training session and must be pre-booked. Please book here to let us know you're coming. 
If the session is fully booked, please join the waiting list as we may be able to offer another training session in response to demand.

Important info

  • Over 18s only.
  • Dress for the weather and in clothes you don't mind getting mucky - all training sessions are practical and will be outside.
  • Wear sturdy, comfortable boots or wellies.
  • Feel free to bring water and snacks with you.
  • Sorry, no dogs are permitted with the exception of service animals.

This training session is FREE thanks to funding support from the Farming in Protected Landscapes programme

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