Instructions:

1. Choose any day that is sunny, warm and calm. These weather conditions are important, as many insects don’t like flying when it’s cold, raining or very windy. If there is a shower of rain, wait at least an hour and for the sun to come out before doing your observation. Some pollinators don’t fly in strong winds, so make sure it is calm or only lightly breezy when you perform your observation.

 2. Find a flowering plant or tree in your garden, or in a local park. You need to tell us what the plant is, so make sure you know the common or scientific name. Choose a single large flower, or a group of smaller flowers within your visible range

3. Watch the flowers continuously for 15 minutes. Record any insect that visits the flowers and moves around on the stamens or pistil (the flower’s reproductive parts). Don’t record anything that just flies past without touching the flower. If you can, try not to count the same individual insect twice. (If they have access to cameras they should take pictures of the insect without scaring it off)

 4. Enter your observations using this google form. You can record multiple separate observations – try watching different flowers at different times of the day. If you do multiple observations, make sure to enter each as a separate submission.

 5. Please make sure to enter exact numbers in each box on the submission form, entering estimates like ‘more than 10’ will not be useful for the data set. If you didn’t see any pollinators at all, you can still submit your observations as ‘0’ – these observations are just as helpful!