About the database

      The Freshwater Invertebrate Survey of Suffolk database contains around 40 thousand records, each of which is of a specimen captured at a single site on a specific date and identified to species level . Almost all records were made in the county of Suffolk in England where for many years I have been the county recorder, working under the auspices of the Suffolk Naturalists' Society . A few do come from out of county and this is made clear on the species pages especially where it is helpful to inform the reader as to which species are either rare, unlikely or cannot be found in Suffolk.

      The entry for each species has to be a precis of the information in my database, in order to be manageable. The main aim is to provide a resource for those who dip the ponds, streams or rivers in Suffolk or indeed elsewhere. Each page will have useful information about the species including details, as applicable, about ease of identification, habitat, life history, frequency of recording or rarity. Hopefully this will help the non specialist to determine the likelihood of the correct identification of their own catch.

      The database will hopefully get larger as time goes by and indeed new records are welcome. Contact details can be found in the footer on each page of this website. However there are only a few freshwater invertebrates where identificaton can easily and definitively be confirmed by email even with a photo attached. Generally photos need to be taken in macro and with many inverts there will be specific parts of the body that need to be carefully phtographed in great detail. With the smallest inverts such as Water Fleas photos should be taken through a compound microscope at high magnification.

      For several years I ran freshwater identification courses at Flatford Mill for the Field Studies Council. My last course was in summer 2019 then a combinaton of Covid, deteriorating eyesight and a cancer diagnosis in 2021 means I will run no more courses. However the documentation I produced for those courses will gradually become available in the Downloads section. This will include some unpublished identificaion guides and SAFIS (Site Analysis for Freshwater Invertebrate Surveys) this is software I have written requiring Microsoft Excel which analyses the conservation value of a site from the species list you obtain during a survey.