Data coverage

Recorders in the field

TVERC holds over 4.5 million records of flora and fauna in Berkshire and Oxfordshire.

Data coverage varies across geographic area and taxonomic group, which is a reflection of survey effort rather than the amount of biodiversity present in an area. Certain places, such as designated wildlife sites, are more likely to have been surveyed and some groups of species (such as birds, butterflies and plants) are more popular for amateur recorders to survey for. A lack of records does not imply a lack of biodiversity!

TVERC are constantly working with recording groups in Berkshire and Oxfordshire to help improve both coverage and accuracy. We have regular contact with around 70 national and local recording groups and numerous individuals, who allow us to include their data on our database. We hold data on all species groups, including nearly 1,400,000  bird records, over 1,130,000 plant records, 46,000 bat records, 7,800 badger records, 8,200 great crested newt records and annually we add over 477,000 records to our database. However, the data we supply to customers is often not ours and so data coverage may be limited by restrictions from data owners which we are bound to respect. We will advise you which groups to contact when we cannot provide data directly to you or when we do not have permission to share the data with full location information.

Further detail is available in the Data Coverage Statement (PDF). The origin of the data will be identified using the Data Origin Key (PDF).

Depending on the nature of the data search request, we may advise customers to contact one or more of the following groups for additional data:

- The Berkshire and South Buckinghamshire Bat Group (Berkshire only)

- Binfield Badger Group (Berkshire only)

- Berkshire Ornithological Club (Berkshire only)

- The Banbury Ornithological Society (Oxfordshire only)

- Oxfordshire Bat Group (Oxfordshire only)

- Oxfordshire Badger Group (Oxfordshire only)

- Shotover Wildlife Group (for searches that that cover the area around Shotover, near Oxford)