One of the last of a series of events lined up to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the ADU this year is our Summer Digital Biodiversity Week, from next Saturday 29 October, through to the following Sunday 6 November, so it includes two weekends. One of our main focuses during 2011 has been celebrating the participation and involvement of citizen scientists in building our digital biodiversity databases, now totalling some 15 million records. The objective of the "digital biodiversity weeks" is to give all our citizen scientists a chance to become a community with the objective of collecting and submitting as much biodiversity data as we are able during the week.

This is also a great opportunity to submit any weaver colony records you have from the past - you need at least a photo, date and coordinates for the colony (a nest count and other information would be useful but not essential). If you have not submitted records before, read details about participation here.

Invite someone new to join you atlasing, ringing, counting, virtual museuming, ... and to show them the project protocols - for example, exactly how to go count weaver nests in a large colony.

Les Underhill, director of the ADU, wrote: "Ultimately, the goal of all the data collection is to have impact on biodiversity conservation. The wealth of data and information contributed by our citizen scientists, collated and curated at the ADU, and analysed by our students and staff and by many other people, has improved biodiversity conservation in southern Africa. Our 20-year celebrations honour you, the citizen scientist. Thank you for your on-going support from all of us at the ADU. Together we are making a difference!"

We look forward to your participation in Digital Biodiversity Week! The total records and species submitted to PHOWN during this week will be automatically updated on the Weaver Watch home page. To see your own submitted records, go here and choose your surname from the drop-down list.

The PHOWN totals of the winter Digital Biodiversity Week may be viewed here.