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 some higher quality
scanned images are being added (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 webpages. 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 and Northern Spain.
Comprehensive coverage should not be expected - for
example there are in excess of 20,000 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 most invertebrates without the aid of a good
quality reference photograph or a detailed description.
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 Terms and
Conditions for Use of Material.
© David Element
Site established December 2000
(Latest Update: 28/4/2008)
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