Story Category: Legacy

This is a legacy story from an earlier version of our website. It may contain some formatting issues and broken links.

Keep a look out for Bullfinch, Pyrrhula pyrrhula this month.

UK conservation status: Amber

Bullfinch pairs stay near to each other all year round, not only when they are nesting and raising young. The male has a bright chest, while the female is duller, though they both have distinctive black caps and wide beaks. Bullfinches feed on buds of trees and in the past were regarded as ‘pests’ of fruit trees. They also eat seeds and have been increasing as garden visitors. They have special throat sacs to carry food back to their young, allowing them to forage further away.

Why not come and have a look at the Booth Museum specimens once we reopen and compare them with any you’ve managed to photograph (or our sample images).

Booth Museum bullfinch diorama

Booth Museum bullfinch diorama

Yellowhammer and Bullfinch

Kerrie Curzon, Collections Assistant

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During the lockdown the UK has become green again, as new leaves have sprouted and opened. Trees become much easier to identify during spring, as they regain their leaves and flowers. I’m going to concentrate on just a few trees, as there are far too many to describe them all in this post.

A new sycamore leaf (Acer psuedoplatanus) © Kerrie Curzon.

Blossoming

Hawthorn (Cretaegus monogyna) leaves appear first, followed by the small open white flowers. The hawthorn is also known as the May flower or blossom, as it used to flower in May, the effects of climate change mean that the flowers now appear in April. The blossom is a great place to see bees and flies of many kinds. Hawthorn can have a very strong and somewhat unpleasant odour and has associations with death because of this. Look out for other trees in bloom, cherry and horse chestnut both have striking blossom.

Hawthorn leaf © Kerrie Curzon.

Hawthorn blossom (and honeybee) © Kerrie Curzon.

In plain sight

The plane tree is very easy to identify before the leaves appear – have you ever wondered what the tree with balls hanging all over it was? Well, those are the seed pods of the London plane (Platanus x acerifolia). London planes are hybrids that were created as robust urban trees, as toxins are shed when the bark flakes away. The bark is fairly easy to identify, with an array of colours that are revealed by the peeling layers. You should still be able to see the seed pods between the leaves. Soft and furry young leaves appear first, before they grow into a large palmate shape. The leaves look similar to sycamore, so you’ll have to use more than one feature to be sure of identification. Using other details such as seeds and bark can help identify trees more easily. Sycamore seeds are very different to those of the London plane. They are often known as helicopters and you’ve probably seen them spinning down from trees or played with them as a child.

London plane, with seed pods.

Close-up of the bark colours and patterns of a London plane.

A plane tree with large older leaves and small new leaves © Kerrie Curzon, taken on a smartphone.

Sycamore seeds, later in the season © Kerrie Curzon.

Protecting our trees

I can’t end a blogpost about trees without mentioning elms. Brighton & Hove has a nationally important collection of elms. Dutch elm disease has decimated populations elsewhere around the country, but Brighton & Hove was, in part, protected by the South Downs and the sea. The population is closely monitored for disease and there are strict rules about when to prune elm and buying elm as timber. New elms are planted to expand the population. The Preston Twins were one of the oldest and most distinctive elms in the country. Sadly earlier this year, one of them became infected and had to be felled, you can still see the other one close to Preston Manor. Elm trees will make their presence known to you later in spring when the elm mast (seeds) falls from the trees and blows everywhere.

Elm leaves © Kerrie Curzon.

Fallen elm mast © Kerrie Curzon.

We are becoming more aware of the benefits to health and wellbeing that trees and other nature can bring. Take a moment to pause and begin to make sense of all the green you see around you. Once you can identify a few plants, the endless bank of green will become textured in new ways, enriching your understanding and your life. 

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Have a look at the previous posts in the Nature at Home series to help with insect identification. Look out for upcoming posts for more details on flowers and trees.

If you want to upload any of your sightings, iNaturalist is a user-friendly citizen science platform. It even helps with identification too. You may also find these guides useful:

The Field Studies Council (FSC) has excellent guides for trees and other plants, which are often very easy to use.

The Woodland Trust produce handy swatches:

Leaf swatch

Kerrie Curzon, Collections Assistant

This is a legacy story from an earlier version of our website. It may contain some formatting issues and broken links.

If you’d visited the Hippodrome in 1933 you may well have caught two Brighton-born twins, who’d taken America by storm.

Violet and Daisy Hilton were conjoined twins who, after many years of exploitation at the hands of their adoptive mother and a corrupt manager on the show-business circuit, managed to strike out on their own and become hugely successful stars of stage, vaudeville and film in the USA.  In 1933 they returned to their home-town to top the bill at the Hippodrome. Today they are featured in the 100 Pioneering Women of Sussex blog series.

Daisy and Violet Hilton, c1927

Daisy and Violet Hilton were born in 1908 in Riley Road, to unmarried bar-maid, Kate Skinner.  Thinking that the twins, who were joined at the hip, was a punishment from God for giving birth out of wedlock, Skinner disowned them. Their being taken in by the midwife, Mary Hilton, who was also landlady of the Queens Arms off St James’ Street and later The Evening Star near Brighton Station, was not the compassionate gesture it may have first seemed.  From the beginning Hilton did her best to exploit interest in the girls for every penny she could make, selling pictures of them from behind the bar and displaying them on international tours from the age of three.

The Hilton sisters as children

In 1916 they were taken to Texas where they were to spend much of the rest of their lives. When Hilton died the twins were ‘bequeathed’ to her daughter and son-in-law, Edith and Meyer Meyers who, according to the twins’ biography, as well as ensuring they learnt dance, saxophone and other performance skills, kept them captive, beat them and kept all the money they earned.  In 1931, by now well-known stars, the sisters managed to break free of the Meyers.  From then on, holding the reins of their own careers, they remained successful celebrities. They returned briefly to Brighton in 1933 to headline a show at the Hippodrome, a visit which caused significant interest in the town.

The homecoming must have been bittersweet for the sisters, however, as they’d intended to track down their birth mother. Sadly Kate Skinner had died a short time after their birth. Returning to the USA, despite their appearance in films, ‘Freaks’ (1932) and ‘Chained for Life’ (1952) and making short lived marriages which were considered by many to be publicity stunts, the sisters faced dwindling popularity as other forms of entertainment became popular and audiences became less comfortable with staring at people who were born different.

The Hilton sisters as children

The story goes that their last public appearance was at a drive-in in Charlotte, North Carolina, in 1961 where, simply abandoned afterwards by their manager, they took on jobs at a local convenience store, dying in 1969 within a few days of each other of the ‘flu.  Although established fixtures of show-business history in America where a Broadway show ‘Sideshow’ staged in 1997 and other plays and films have been made about their lives, they are less well known in their home town. This is about to change thanks to the efforts of local historian Alf Le Flohic who has been campaigning to raise funds to erect a blue plaque on the twins’ birthplace at 18 Riley Road. This was scheduled to take place on 29 May 2020 following a talk by Le Flohic ‘The Brighton United Twins’ at the Gladstone pub on Lewes Road, just a stone’s throw away from Riley Road where these talented twins were born 112 years ago.  Sadly, at the time of writing, this has had to be postponed due to the ongoing Covid 19 situation.  Look out here for it to be rescheduled.

This is an extract from Louise Peskett’s forthcoming book, Brighton Women, the Notable and the Notorious: A Guided Walk

This is a legacy story from an earlier version of our website. It may contain some formatting issues and broken links.

Fanny Burney is considered one of Britain’s first female novelists, writing sharp satirical stories which poked fun at the foibles of fashionable society a few decades before Jane Austen.  She was a frequent visitor to Brighton, often staying here as a guest of Hester Thrales, and joining her in the sea for a dip.

Fanny Burney, by Charles Turner, published by Paul and Dominic Colnaghi & Co, after Edward Francisco Burney mezzotint, published 16 May 1840 NPG D13846 © National Portrait Gallery, London

Fanny was born into a large family in Kings Lynn, Suffolk.  Her father was a successful musician.  Although her two sisters were sent to Paris for an education Fanny was considered not very bright – it’s been suggested she may have had dyslexia – so had no formal education. This gave her the freedom to read whatever she liked at home, write diaries, and start to make up stories, or ‘scribblings’ as she called them.  Aged fifteen, with the notion that writing wasn’t a respectable activity for a young lady, she destroyed her first novel.  At some point it appears the urge to write won out the urge to be a respectable young lady.

Evelina, Volume II, 1779 edition

Her first and most famous novel, ‘Evelina’ appeared in 1778, published anonymously and without the knowledge of her father.  Written in letter form, ‘Evelina’ charts the progress of a seventeen year old woman as she negotiates the many traps, challenges and dangers of being a young woman of marriageable age in the eighteenth century.  The novel is pioneering for its use of a female protagonist – a rare thing at the time – its satirical view of fashionable society, and its mocking of the masculine values that shaped women’s lives.  Writing a good few years before Jane Austen, Burney was well aware of the pitfalls of the cynical marriage market that had no room for love and saw partners only in terms of how much money they were worth.

The novel was a huge success, gaining praise from literary heavyweights of the age, and after a few months Burney owned up to being the author.  Consequently, she fell into Hester Thrale’s orbit and became part of the artistic, cultural and political set who gathered around the Thrales in Streatham.  In 1779, she stayed here in Brighton with the Thrale family and wrote in her diary how much she enjoyed sea-bathing.

Fanny went on to write four novels, eight plays, one biography and twenty-five volumes of journals and letters.

She put off marriage until her early forties, marrying a French emigre, General Alexandre D’Arblay in 1793.  They had one son.

A footnote to Fanny Burney’s career is the description of a mastectomy that she underwent in France in 1810.  Anaesthetic had yet to be invented and Burney remained conscious throughout the surgery.  The incredibly detailed operation, described in a letter to her sister, is considered the earliest known description of this procedure by a woman. Burney survived the operation, living until her 80s, outliving her husband and son, and finally settling in Bath.

This is an extract from Louise Peskett’s forthcoming book, Brighton Women, the Notable and the Notorious: A Guided Walk

This is a legacy story from an earlier version of our website. It may contain some formatting issues and broken links.

It’s the 1st July and the height of summer (even if we are lacking the sun this week) so Beth has picked a lovely bunch of cheerful flowers to Brighton up this weeks Draw and inspire all those budding artists.

Beth

Join In

If you are tempted to have a go, please share your drawings with us? We would love to see them. Email them to Beth at beth.burr@brighton-hove.gov.uk 

Tweet @BrightonMuseums or if you are uploading them to Facebook with pride, share the url in the comments section below.

Come back next Wednesday to see what new objects Beth has chosen.

This week’s additional ideas:

• Anything made out of metal – Metal objects are usually reflective and present their own set of challenging textures.
• Draw the same still life 3 times, zooming farther in each time.

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The Mid-Week Draw

Beth Burr, Museum Support Officer

This is a legacy story from an earlier version of our website. It may contain some formatting issues and broken links.

Today marks Canada Day (July 1), and to celebrate, Brighton Museum’s resident Canadian revisits a baseball game that took place at Preston Park in 1917, introducing the Brighton community to the comical world of Canadian fandom in the early 20th century.

It’s been one year since I moved from Canada to England to work as a Collections Assistant for the Royal Pavilion & Museums. I spend most of my time with objects and while museum work is often about uncovering stories, I was quite surprised and excited to find a story about Canadians so far from home. This baseball game sounds like quite the event. I am actually sorry I wasn’t there to see it.

Baseball match. Canadians v. Americans, Preston Park, Brighton. Saturday, August 25th 1917.

A charity game and a respite from the Great War

On 25 August, 1917 Preston Park brought a bit of North America to Brighton. On the cricket ground a charity baseball game was played between Canada and the United States. With the ceremonious pre-game welcome, the philanthropic intentions (all proceeds going to the Brighton, Hove and Preston division of the British Red Cross Society) and the whole event a symbol of Britain’s appreciation for Allied support in the war, it is not unfounded to imagine that local spectators were expecting a quiet, dignified afternoon of sunshine, socialising, and the occasional “well played sir”. But that is not what happened.

Baseball match. Canadians v. Americans, Preston Park, Brighton. Saturday, August 25th 1917.

The Canadian fans make themselves known

The game itself, described by the Brighton Herald as ‘some hustle’, was not the only entertainment import that day. For a true North American sports experience, North American fans were needed, and the rambunctious Canadian fans in attendance did not disappoint. In a huge crowd consisting of civilians, allied officers, and convalescing soldiers from the Royal Pavilion, it was the Canadians who were heard above the rest, shocking their Brighton hosts with unrelenting denunciations . . . of their own players.

Never mind that most of the team had just come back from convalescing; there was an insult for every play.

“Give him a basket” in response to a missed hit.

“Are you dead? Or only at the feet?” in response to a player not getting to the base in time.

“Get that margarine off your hands” in response to a dropped ball.

“Get the dust out of your eyes” in response to just about everything.

Even a two star officer reached over and shook his fist at a player telling him to “go back to Canada”.

As the Herald reported: “The Canadian Team wasn’t playing very well, and every Canadian there let them know it.” For me, and I am sure for other Canadian sports fans, this is not at all surprising.

The Herald likened the constant Canada-on-Canada bashing to machine gun fire, remarking that the polite British spectators feared bloodshed. But after a few innings, when they saw that the team and the umpire (who received his fair share of insults) were hardly phased, they soon caught on that the berating wasn’t meant to be cruel; it was just the North American way of saying that their attention was, shall we say, undivided. The Herald concluded that the commentary was as “much a part of the game as the ball or peanuts and chewing gum”.

Baseball match. Canadians v. Americans, Preston Park, Brighton. Saturday, August 25th 1917

Familiar Brighton names make the Canadians feel at home

Peanuts and chewing gum were, of course, provided that day. Henry D Roberts, prominent cultural facilitator, and the first director of the Royal Pavilion Estate, made sure there was an abundant supply of these game-day staples in order to create a “home away from home” for the Canadians. And while he managed the transatlantic confectionary, Mr and Mrs Thomas-Stanford of Preston Manor, tended to over fifty convalescing soldiers from the Royal Pavilion, serving tea and running to and fro amongst a sea of blue uniforms. The hospitable gestures did not go unnoticed. With the buzz of the game, the array of not-so creative insults, and the snacks, the Canadians were quite at home.

Baseball match. Canadians v. Americans, Preston Park, Brighton. Saturday, August 25th 1917

A successful event

Despite the Canadians’ spectacular loss (12-1), the event was considered a great success. Following the match, each player was awarded a silver matchbox by mayoress Mrs Herbert Carden and Mrs Thomas-Stanford and the large crowd commended the teams’ efforts with rousing cheers. In this brief respite from the realities of war, a good time seems to have been had by all.

Today, there are many fan bases that would rival the Canadians but at the time was one of the first baseball games played in Brighton. The vocal reprimanding would have been as shocking as it was entertaining – as much an import as the game itself. The Canadians did vow revenge, so if a rematch was held today, it would be interesting to see how much has changed. Most Canadian sports fans would probably wager very little.

Brighton Herald, 1 September 1917

You can read an account of the baseball game in the 1 September 1917 edition of the Brighton Herald. A pdf of the publication can be downloaded from our online image website.

Kasey Ball, Collections Assistant 

This is a legacy story from an earlier version of our website. It may contain some formatting issues and broken links.

As we wait to welcome you back, take a look behind the scenes at ongoing conservation work on the wallpaper in Queen Victoria’s bedroom.

Discover More

Find out about the conservation and restoration work in Queen Victoria’s Apartment. 

If you want to learn more about the history of the Royal Pavilion, our new guidebook is an essential purchase from our online shop.

This is a legacy story from an earlier version of our website. It may contain some formatting issues and broken links.

As many of us continue to stay local in our wanderings, the ‘patch’ becomes newly relevant. A patch will mean different things to different people, but the general idea is it’s a place you can visit repeatedly to observe wildlife.

For me, this means exploring the thin strip of woodland, Burstead Woods, that leads up to Wild Park. I’ve been walking there for over ten years and recently started running there as well.

Entrance to Burstead Woods © Kerrie Curzon

Out into Wild Park © Kerrie Curzon

Seeing differently

Your patch is there to experience the same place but in different ways. This is so important during the lockdown, as visiting the same place can appear to be uninspiring, but the richness comes with seeing the familiar in different ways. Sometimes I take my camera and spend a while focusing in on details, such as an insect resting on a flower. Most of the time I take my binoculars, which shifts the focus from details to far off objects. Occasionally, I leave all the equipment behind and rely on my eyes and ears. Each of these ways of engaging with nature create a slightly different focus, which results in variety even though it is in the same place.

The meadow © Kerrie Curzon

A different pace

When I started running last summer, I chose the same route as my walks, as I thought woodland would be more interesting than pavements. I didn’t expect to actually enjoy nature while running, but it turns out it’s different and thrilling in its own way. There isn’t time to stop but I’ve seen red kites, skylarks, kestrels and great spotted woodpeckers, all on the go. This is a completely new way for me to engage with my patch.

Kestrel hovering over the meadow at Wild Park © Lee Ismail

Back again

Since the lockdown I have explored new paths and trails through the woods to make social distancing easier when other people are on the usual paths. This adds another form of variation. Even just walking your patch in a different direction can reveal new sights.

A smaller path through the centre of the woods © Kerrie Curzon

If you hadn’t realised by now, the point of a patch is repetition. You may be in the same place but the wildlife won’t be, which provides new sights each time. Even trees and plants that clearly don’t move, will display variation throughout your visits. Spring is an excellent example of this, as the woodland floor displays a variety of colours first and then the trees regain their leaves. Flowers open, which invites insects to feed. Birds are then attracted to pick off insects around the blossoms. You may even see fledglings being fed in a tree you’ve walked past many times before.

Even as lockdown changes and you’re able to explore further, you may find greater richness from exploring the same area. As demands from everyday life return and you need a quick dose of nature, revisiting your patch could provide just that.

Magpie in the meadow © Lee Ismail

Kerrie Curzon, Collections Assistant

This is a legacy story from an earlier version of our website. It may contain some formatting issues and broken links.

She was one of George IV’s favourite writers, and Brighton famously features in one of her most popular novels, Pride & Prejudice, and in her unfinished last work, Sanditon, but can we claim Jane Austen as a Sussex woman? And what did she think of Brighton?

Alexandra Loske, curator of the 2017 exhibition Jane Austen by the Sea at the Royal Pavilion, has looked into the great novelist’s relationship with Brighton and the South coast.

Portrait of Jane Austen, after a drawing by Cassandra Austen

“If one could but go to Brighton!”

This is the excited exclamation by both Lydia Bennett and her mother in Pride & Prejudice. Mrs Bennett is considering the positive effects on her health and general well-being, noting that “A little sea-bathing would set me up for ever.” By contrast, for her two youngest daughters, the impulsive and boisterous Kitty and Lydia, the attraction of Brighton has clearly much more to do with the “campful of soldiers” stationed there. Both their father and sensible big sister Elizabeth are more critical, thinly disguising their worry about the corrupting influence of this most fashionable and notorious of Georgian watering places.

Water, sea bathing and seaside resorts feature prominently in both Austen’s work and her life. In the late 1790s and early 1800s Austen spent many holidays in resorts along the English and Welsh coast, among them Dawlish, Charmouth, Uplyme, Lyme Regis and Weymouth. Austen’s letters tell us that she enjoyed taking the waters as well as the social life and entertainment in these fashionable places, although there has always been much discussion about her attitude to Brighton in particular. She sends her more reckless, frivolous and silly fictional characters there, but the general assumption that the author herself disliked Brighton is a misconception.

Austen appears never to have learned to swim though, and, like many seaside visitors, relied on the help of a ‘dipper’ – a strong person who would lower you into the shallow water, usually from the steps of a bathing machine that had been pulled into the sea by a donkey. In 1804 Austen caught a fever while staying in Lyme and decided to take to the bathing machines. She wrote to her beloved sister Cassandra, who was in Weymouth at the time: ‘I continue quite well, in proof of which I have bathed again this morning.’

Map from The Three Grand Routes from Brighton to London, and the Topography of that Fashionable
Watering Place, 1815

It is likely that for Austen and other women sea-bathing was a form of physical enjoyment and even liberation. At times Austen even seems to have overindulged in dipping and sea-bathing. She reports in another letter: ‘The bathing was so delightful this morning and Molly [probably her dipper] so pressing me to enjoy myself that I stayed in rather too long, as since the middle of the day I have felt unreasonably tired. I shall be more careful tomorrow, as I had before intended.’

Bathing Machines (Brighton), after Thomas Rowlandson, 1790

Did Jane Austen dislike Brighton?

There is a widespread belief that Jane Austen was dismissive of Brighton. This unproven assumption is based on two things: the creation of the mildly disreputable, flighty and fun-loving character of Lydia Bennet in Pride and Prejudice, and a simple mistake in a published volume of her letters.

The first edition of her letters appeared in 1884, edited by Lord Brabourne and published by Bentley in London. Letter no.17 in this edition is one by Jane to Cassandra, written at Steventon,Hampshire, on 8 January 1799. It contains the line

“I assure you that I dread the idea of going to Brighton as much as you do, but I am not without hopes that something may happen to prevent it.”

This was a mis-transcription that would throw a long shadow. Jane Austen’s letter actually reads

“I assure you that I dread the idea of going to Bookham as much as you can do, but I am not without hopes that something may happen to prevent it.”

The next scholarly edition of her collected letters, published in 1932 and edited by R W Chapman, made the same mistake, and it was repeated again and again in countless publications, blog posts, articles etc because many writers use these older editions. The Braebourne and Chapman editions of Jane Austen’s letters have been digitised by many institutions and are therefore frequently used as a source of reference. The mistake was finally corrected by the scholar Deirdre Le Faye, who notes in her 1995 edition of Jane Austen’s Letters (Oxford University Press) that the word Bookham had been crossed out by Cassandra, which made the reading difficult. There is no negative mention of Brighton in any of Jane Austen’s letters. Bookham is a place near Effington in Surrey that Austen visited in 1799 and 1814, as her godfather the Reverend Cooke lived there, and it likely she simply dreaded yet another boring family visit.

Did she ever come here?

We now know that Austen may not have felt as negatively about the town as has been thought, and although she may have disapproved of some aspects of Brighton, the place was certainly a source of great inspiration for her. And as for the tantalising question whether the wonderful Miss Austen ever set foot in Brighton, my personal opinion is that she most probably did, but that it went unrecorded because she was likely in the company of her sister, so there was no need to write to her.

Old Steine, Brighton, 1796, around the time Jane Austen’s brother was stationed there.

There is much circumstantial evidence that she did come here, but sadly nothing concrete. Given her general love for the seaside, the many other places she visited in the South of England, that she wrote with such confidence about the seaside and watering places, and the fact that her brother Henry Thomas Austen, having spent some time in the town in the 1790s while serving with the Royal Oxfordshire Militia, would suggest that she had some first-hand knowledge of the place. I do like the thought of her enjoying the attractions of Brighton in the late 18th century, observing people, being amused by their behaviour, and making copious mental notes for how she could use the place and its people in her writing. I do so wish that one day we will find a note in an archive somewhere that proves she did come here. What a great addition to our city’s history that would be.

Alexandra Loske, Curator, The Royal Pavilion

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The second blog in support of National Insect Week 2020 encourages you to look at the huge diversity of insects that live in your immediate surroundings. We’ve previously written about looking at local wildlife in our Nature at Home series of blogs. The Royal Entomological Society’s #NIW2020 homepage also gives tips and ideas of how to interact with insects around you, and tips on photographing insects.

The gallery below gives an idea of some of the huge variety of insects that can currently be seen. These were all photographed in the suburbs and countryside surrounding Brighton:

Meadow Bug, Woods Mill, June 2020 © L. Ismail

Crane fly, Woods Mill, June 2020 © L. Ismail

Bumblebee Hoverfly, Woods Mill, June 2020 © L. Ismail

Peacock butterfly caterpillars, Woods Mill, June 2020 © L. Ismail

Sailor Beetle, Woods Mill, June 2020 © L. Ismail

Planthopper adult, Southwick, June 2020 © L. Ismail

Ant farming aphids, Southwick, June 2020 © L. Ismail

Greenbottle fly, Southwick, June 2020 © L. Ismail

Azure damselfly, Southwick, June 2020 © L. Ismail

Thick legged flower beetle (female), Southwick, June 2020 © L. Ismail

Why not see what you can photograph, and submit your observations to iNaturalist to help scientists around the world get a better idea of what insects are around this year. By inputting the locality the photograph was taken, the iNaturalist site will even try and ID your organism for you, and the wider community will help too. The gallery below shows a step-by-step visual guide to signing up and adding observations:

Step 1: Hit the signup button here and follow the signup steps.

Step 2: Once you’ve created an account, you can submit your first observation by clicking the circled button in the top right corner.

Step 3: You can then add your photo, video or sound recording by clicking this button and choosing the file from your PC.

Step 4: On the blank observation, we recommend recording locality first. Click the blank locality field and a world map pops up. Choose where you made the observation by zooming in and clicking on the map. You can obscure your location (circled) if sensitive.

Step 5: By adding locality first, when you select the species name it gives suggestions based on both appearance and species seen nearby. Select what you think your observation is.

Step 6: When you’re happy with your record hit the submit observation button in the top right corner.

Step 7: Finished! Your observation front page shows all the things you’ve recorded and plots them on a world map.

And if you manage to take some photos you’re pleased with, why not submit them to The Royal Entomological Society’s insect photography competition

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For more tips, ideas and competitions please visit the Royal Entomological Society’s #NIW2020 home page

Read more in our Nature at Home series

Lee Ismail, Curator of Natural Sciences