Welcome
to David Element's Wildlife Web Pages...1
See
animals portrayed in their natural surroundings....
---------------------A HOVERFLY Chrysotoxum
festivum in flight
- Navigation
on this website has been designed to be as simple as
possible both within and between subject types. If you go
to the Site Index page and click on a title or a
thumbnail image then this will open the first
subject-specific page. If you click on a number you will
open the selected page within a subject. You may then
navigate within that subject or return to the Site
Index page as desired. Alternatively the Common Name or Scientific Name Indexes may be
used. The links on these pages will lead directly to one
or more pages containing photograph(s) of the named
subject(s). Both of these indexes have been arranged in
alphabetical order although for the Scientific Name Index
this applies to generic names only.
- Numerous HTML keyword
meta-tags have been inserted to facilitate
detailed species searches in English and Latin and these
are now available via many search engines (Google
is highly recommended). As these name tags
have been entered as separate words (and some English
names are very non-specific) it is suggested that a
search is entered using the Latin (scientific) name in
lower case and with each word in quotation marks as
follows: Generic name + Specific
name, e.g. "chrysotoxum"+
"festivum". This will narrow the
search considerably and save time.
- Thumbnail images
of many of the photographs shown on these pages are
provided by the excellent Google
search engine. These are available as a 'gallery' if a Google
'Images' search is performed using the photographer's
name in quotation marks, i.e. "david
element". Guest photographer
images may be located in the same manner by substituting
the guest photographer's name. Individual species
searches may be performed in the manner
described above using the 'Images' search
option - use of the scientific name may
narrow this type of search, particularly for commonly
photographed subjects. The full available selection of
pictures on this site will be displayed by clicking on
the hyperlink: http://images.google.com/images?q=+site:www.david.element.ukgateway.net+%22david+element%22&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi
- These thumbnails will
directly connect the user to the original page where a
full size image of the required subject will be
displayed. Note that in some cases the thumbnail will be
of another subject from the same page and that the
copyright of certain images on this site may belong to
other photographers. As the search engine images have
been cached, some links will lead to revised pages or
dead ends if the URLs have been revised. Some search
engines appear to restrict their thumbnail displays to a
maximum of 1,000 images.
- The photographic content of
this site is constantly being upgraded and higher quality
digital images are being added as they become available
(see Site Announcements for details).
- There are now about 1,400
of the author's own photographs on this website and
several guest photographer pages have also been included.
See Site Index for full
details of these and David's other linked wildlife web
pages.
It is hoped that these pictures will help to stimulate an
interest in the Natural World. Some of the images may
also be useful for identification and certain pages have
been deliberately formulated with this purpose in mind.
Other pages simply present general illustrations of their
subject matter.
- Accurate identification to
species level is not always possible from photographs
and serious students of Natural History will be aware of
the need for academic reference material (see below).
Most of the illustrations are of British species with
some additional images from France, Northern Spain and
Italy. Comprehensive coverage should not be expected -
for example there are in excess of 23,000 species of
insect in the UK alone and no individual could reasonably
be expected to find, identify and photograph them all!
There are also restrictions on the available webspace, so
colourful or easily recognisable species may have been
given priority on some pages.
- The photographer accepts
full responsibility for any misidentifications and would
be grateful for any feedback via e-mail at david.element@ukgateway.net from
authoritative sources if any incorrect captions are
noticed as this helps to improve the quality of the data
on this site.
- Please note that
unsolicited e-mails will be deleted
without being opened if the subject
message is unclear or if the the sender has not been
fully identified as the author does not wish to import
computer viruses. Any e-mail photograph attachments
should be of low
resolution only, sent as individual messages for each
photograph and the date (if known) and location should be
given.
- Correct identification of
such a wide range of subjects is very demanding,
particularly as a spare-time pursuit, and although all of
the included subjects have been carefully vetted some
errors will be inevitable. Classification of species is
under constant scrutiny and scientific (Latin) names may
have been modified since the source reference works were
written. Correspondents should note that it is impossible
to identify many invertebrates even with the aid of a
good quality reference photograph or a detailed
description unless they are particularly distinctive.
There are many examples on-line of identifications based
on a superficial resemblence to entirely different
species. Several of the linked websites provide much more
extensive and expert coverage of particular groups (see
below).
- A short bibliography has
been given at the end of each title page. The listed
works are mainly British reference books which will
provide an in-depth analysis of their subjects. Certain
books may be out of print but these may sometimes be
available from libraries or the second-hand book market.
Recommended suppliers like
- Pembury Books
http://www.pembooks.demon.co.uk/
- E. W. Classey
http://www.classeybooks.com/
- NHBS
http://www.nhbs.com/ or
- Subbuteo
http://www.wildlifebooks.com/ will send free catalogues upon
request although much of the information contained should
also be available on the suppliers' websites. Some areas
of Natural History are very demanding and they may
therefore be less well studied than the popular subjects
and poorly represented in print with very few good books
currently available. The above suppliers also advertise
many top quality Continental publications and
these are often illustrated to a very high standard.
- There are ever-increasing
numbers of excellent websites covering a broad range of
Natural History subjects and some of these have been
identified for reference purposes with hyperlinks
provided for instant access from these pages. Most
notable amongst these is the award winning 'ARKive'
website: http://www.arkive.org/index.html. In many cases these sites
contain links of their own and these will open up access
to a wealth of useful information. Hyperlinks to this
site are also being provided by an increasing number of
other websites from Britain and abroad. These links
are welcomed although the content of these sites is
outside of the editorial control of the author and the
accuracy of the information given cannot therefore be
guaranteed. External links may become obsolete without
the author's knowledge. The book and website lists are
updated periodically.
- The names of specific
locations have deliberately been omitted in order to
protect the more vulnerable species from disturbance or
collection.
- One other issue - please
read the COPYRIGHT page for an explanation of the legal
issues associated with the use of Internet
website material. None of the photographs
or text from this website may be reproduced in any form
without the express permission of the author.
This would constitute a breach of intellectual copyright
law and legal action may be taken. Please
see Site Announcements/Terms
and Conditions for Use of Material.
© David Element: david.element@ukgateway.net
Site established December 2000
(Latest Update: 12/1/2010)
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