Grid references made easy

You don't have to venture very far away from this sceptred isle to discover that Ordnance Survey (OS) deserves to be one of Great Britain's most envied institutions. I'd even go as far as to say OS maps, and the public rights of way recorded on them, are one of the greatest things about living in Britain.


OS maps - especially the Explorer series - are certainly a great tool for wildlife recording. Learning how to read an OS map is like opening an invitation to a whole new world of places to explore, right on your doorstep, where you can hunt for undiscovered populations of Dukes and Emperors. And enjoy a nice pint while you're out.

Team up an OS map with the aerial imagery provided by Google Maps, and you've got an awesome tool for wildlife recording. And that's exactly what the Grab a Grid Reference website does.  Seriously, it's awesome. It's free. And it's been developed by Bedfordshire Natural History Society out of the kindness of their hearts.


How is this useful for wildlife recording?

Grab a Grid Reference enables you to identify a place - either on the Google Maps aerial image or on the OS map - where you made your wildlife sighting. By getting the marker and moving it around on the aerial image, it will give you an accurate grid reference for that location.

It doesn't matter if you don't really understand grid references because the Grab a Grid Reference site tells you the grid reference for the location where you put your marker and shows you a coloured square outlining the area that the grid reference covers. The size and colour of the square depends on how precise the grid reference is.  The more numbers there are in a grid reference, the more precise it is.  So a two-figure grid reference (i.e. one with two numbers in it, after the two-letter prefix) describes a 10 km square.  A four-figure grid reference describes a 1 km square.  And a six-figure grid reference describes a 100 m square.

 
County Recorders like me, and your Local Record Centre, will be eternally grateful if you're able to supply your wildlife sightings with accurate grid references that are precise to 1 km or 100 m (i.e. a four-figure or a six-figure grid reference).  


But it's usefulness doesn't stop there! Grab a Grid Reference is also a really useful tool for scouting unexplored areas. Using the aerial imagery you can identify potentially suitable habitat where you might find undiscovered colonies of butterflies or other species. And you can refer to the OS map to see where the public rights of way are, enabling you to get out there and explore and survey under-recorded areas. 

As we're approaching the halfway point with our Sussex Butterfly Atlas project, this kind of approach will really help us fill in the gaps in our distibution maps and our knowledge.

Explore somewhere new this summer! And make your wildlife sightings count.