More than 50 youngsters have helped record the assortment of wildlife in the Highlands at the weekend.
About 100 people took part in a fun day at Milton Loch, Boat of Garten on Saturday where more than a dozen leading experts shared their wisdom as part of an event organised for the Cairngorms nature weekend festival.
And even the experts were delighted when they discovered a parasite fish, the lamprey – an ancient, jawless protected species.
Allan Bantick, chairman of the Boat of Garten Wildlife Group said: “It was a spectacular and brilliantly successful event.
“The purpose was twofold, for people to have fun connecting with nature and also to gather data and record it for all time.
“It was a chance for young people in the company of 15 experts to have a really good look at the environment – trees, insects, animals and fish. And I think they would have got a great deal out of it.
“The feedback, with everyone converging on the community hall for soup and rolls afterwards provided by the Cairngorms National Park, was marvellous.”
Experts including naturalist Nick “Bug Boy” Baker who presents the BBC’s Really Wild Show were on hand to identify species that people found.
A vast array of creatures was unearthed including rare spiders and the lamprey.
Laptops were provided in the village hall for people to input their data.
“It was a fantastic effort. This will be a legacy for the future,” Mr Bantick added. “It will be very useful for the park and also for the community council, not least to help in terms of planning applications.”
The wildlife group is now wading through the data which it will input into the iRecord Biodiversity Records Centre online wildlife archiving website.
That information is fed into a national database for wildlife records.
