Hello All,
This is my first time using this forum.
I recently submitted a record of Clover Melitta bee (Melitta leporina) outside of its known range and soon after was presented with a notification saying something along the lines of 'this record cannot be accepted unless it is from a known recorder'. My question is, what makes a recorder a 'known recorder'? And how could one go about becoming a known recorder?
Thanks.
Thanks James, that's really…
Thanks James, that's really helpful. Can I ask how long I should expect to wait until a record gets accepted? Thanks very much again😊
It might be a while...
Bees do have several verifiers active on iRecord, however I've had a quick look at Melitta records from last summer and it looks like they were mostly verified over winter/early spring, so I would suspect it's not likely to get looked at for a while unless you are in an area where there is a county recorder as verifier, who might get to it quicker as they have a smaller area to cover. Verification time varies between groups though as a result of the differences in volunteer time and availability, so for some things, e.g. shieldbugs, it might get verified the next day.
That is one of the automated check messages, so the short answer is ignore it. If you have submitted pictures that show enough to confirm the ID as Meliitta leporina then when a verifier gets round to reviewing it, your record will be accepted.
The message is mainly as a flag that the species might either be scarce or easily confused with other bees. The 'known recorder' bit mainly refers to records submitted without photos, because in that case the verifier has to make a judgement call, do they think the record is likely to be correct? If it is someone they know or have had dealings with then they have a good idea of their level of ID skills, whereas with someone you have no idea about it is hard to decide that they are correct.
In terms of what a known recorder is, it might be someone actually known (for example through a local naturalists society if the verifier is a county recorder), virtually known (e.g. a regular poster on the BWARS Facebook group) but otherwise it can just be someone that regularly submits correct records. As a verifier you get to see statistics based on previous records, so if for example you have submitted 50 records of bees and they have all been accepted, the verifier can get an idea of your level of expertise.