Andrew Whitelee from Taylor Wildlife on how they use QGIS to help with wildlife surveying and reporting. Presented at 6th Scottish QGIS UK user group.

1. Using QGIS for Ecological
Surveying
Andrew Whitelee, Senior Ecologist
(@verdantwildlife)
Taylor Wildlife
www.taylorwildlife.co.uk
6th QGIS UK User Group Meeting, Edinburgh, Scotland

2. Who are we and what do we do?
• Ecological Consultancy based near
Aberlour
• Specialists in upland and island ecology
• Plants and habitats
• Birds
• Butterflies
• Mammals

3. What we use QGIS for
• Creating Habitat Maps
• Mapping and Recording Habitat Plots
• Creating “blank” survey sheets
• Deer Management Plans
• Presenting results of
• Butterfly Surveys
• Mammal Surveys
• Bird Surveys

4. Habitat Mapping

6. Habitat Plots – Grazing Impact Analysis
• Each site has 60 habitat plots,
consisting of 2 x 30 plots of the
two dominant habitats
• Each plot is 2m x 2m and has to
be surveyed once a year for 5
years
• Marked with a wooden stake
and a 10 figure grid reference
• Plotted on GIS as points

9. Butterfly Surveys
• Survey each 1km square 3 times, at least 10 days apart
• Survey carried out by means of 2 x 1km parallel transects through the square

10. • Report requires us to establish presence of species per km square
• Use TomBio plug-in to represent the results

11. Survey Sheets
• In the summer we can have up to 20 seasonal field surveyors spread across at least 5 sites
• Important to standardise the surveying so that all surveys by all surveyors across all sites are
comparable
• To facilitate this we use the QGIS Atlas Tool to create standard survey sheets, dividing sites into 4km2

12. • Standard Recording
Sheet
• Name, Date, Survey
Type
• Grid References
• Km squares divided
into four

13. Bird Surveys
• Survey Method
• Each 1km square is divided into 4 x 500m squares
• Required to cover all the ground in each 500m square in 20 to 25
minutes, going within 100m of each point in the square
• Time entering and exiting the square, route taken and birds seen and
their activity needs to be recorded

15. Routes
Tried using GPS track to plot routes, however we found entering them manually was easier

17. Time for a demo…………

18. S.
S.
Survey Round 1

19. S. S.
Survey Round 2

20. S.
S.
Survey Round 3

21. S.
S.
S.
Survey Round 4

22. S.
S.
S.
S.
S.
S. S.
S.
S.
Survey Rounds Merged

23. Summary
• Quite new to QGIS and haven’t fully exploited its potential
• Knowing how QGIS works means we can tailor our fieldwork
to make sure we collect and record the correct data
• Excellent tool for presenting our data (with lots of help from
Amy at Cawdor Forestry)