Click the image below to explore the North Meadow Species Database
In June 2024, Cricklade Court Leet began a project to collate all known species records for North Meadow SAC.
We launched the project with a BioBlitz, working alongside local naturalists and six Wiltshire County Species Recorders.
While the Floodplain Meadows Partnership has undertaken extensive research into the plant communities of species-rich grasslands, far less was known about other groups of species on the site.
To address this, we brought together records from multiple sources, including:
- national databases such as NBN Atlas and iRecord
- the Wiltshire and Swindon Biological Records Centre
- newly commissioned surveys carried out by specialist recorder.
Malaise Trap on North Meadow
A major additional source of invertebrate data comes from a partnership with the Sanger Institute (Cambridge). This involves operating a monthly malaise trap, capturing flying insects for DNA sequencing.
What we’ve discovered so far
When we combined all available records, the results were remarkable:
1,774 species recorded
16,500 individual records
650 additional species identified through DNA sequencing and awaiting confirmation
This brings the total to nearly 2,500 species, and we expect this to increase to around 3,500 species within the next 12–18 months.
Why we created the database
We wanted to make this information accessible for research, conservation, and public use.
A simple spreadsheet quickly proved inadequate. Instead, we developed a relational database, accessible through this website.
This approach allows:
individual records to be traced back to their original source
additional ecological information — such as life cycles and food plants — to be linked to each species
the dataset to be expanded and refined over time
This growing dataset provides an increasingly complete picture of the extraordinary biodiversity of North Meadow, supporting both its conservation and wider scientific understanding.