Contacting us
About us - Contact us - Submit pictures
The Algarve section of First Nature was created and is maintained by Sue Parker. Since the mid 1990s, First Nature has been publishing books and free online information about the natural world, its wildlife, wildflowers, fungi and habitats. Sue and her husband Pat have a broad interest in the natural world, but in particular Sue specialises in the study of wild orchids. The native (terrestrial) orchids of Europe are a particular passion.
Naturalist Sue Parker’s fascination with orchids stems from her childhood in the Far East. The colourful wildflowers growing over her garden fence in Singapore were the kind of exotic orchids that many people in Europe now have in pots on windowsills. The search for wild orchids has taken Sue to many countries; but, as she says, there is a special satisfaction in finding and identifying beautiful orchids close to home – and for the past 16 years Sue’s home in Carvoiero has been a base for studying the Algarve’s wonderful wildflowers and, in particular, its wild orchids. (Sue also has a home in Wales, which serves as her main ‘writing’ base.)
An active conservationist, Sue is the author of 12 books and several dozen articles on wildlife and countryside topics; she is well known in the Algarve for her column on Sustainable Living, which is published monthly in the Algarve Resident newspaper. Sue’s latest book, Wild Orchids of the Algarve - how, when and where to find them, provides a wealth of additional information on orchid ecology, taxonomy, top orchid sites and walks in the Algarve; its the essential handbook for Algarve residents and visitors alike. Sue has also produced and maintains the Algarve section of this website.
How to Contact Us
The quickest way to contact us is by email. Whenever we are away we have email access via a Blackberry, and we can normally respond to emails within 12 hours (and often by return). Email link...
If you need to send a printed document to us, please use the postal address below, but if at all possible please email us so that if we are away we can make arrangements to respond.
Do you need help to identify species?
If you wish to send pictures of wildflower or fungi species with a request for help in identifying them, please attach no more than two pictures (or one picture if larger than 3MB in size) with any one email; this ensures that email gateways on the Internet do not prevent your attachment getting through. We do not have the capacity to deal with large numbers of pictures from individuals or organisations, however.
To submit your own pictures for possible inclusion on the website
We are always delighted to receive potential contributions to the website. In particular, pictures are very much appreciated and we do always reply. Sometimes we are able to include the pictures, with due acknowledgement, on either new or existing pages.
When someone enquires about using a picture that belongs to one of our contributors, we transfer the enquiry to the owner of the picture, and any royalty fee is payable directly to the copyright owner . Please note that we do not have a budget to pay for the use of pictures, and we cannot guarantee that display of your pictures on this website will necessarily result in other people offering to pay a royalty fee to use your pictures elsewhere; however, several million people will have an opportunity to enjoy your pictures, and we think that is something to be proud of.
When submitting pictures for consideration please email them as attachments, in JPG format if at all possible. (Files larger than 3MB may not get through by email.) For large pictures (1024 x 768 pixels or greater) we recommend that you send each picture via a separate email. Alternatively, where you have several pictures to offer it may be simpler to send them on a CD or a DVD by post to us at the address below.
When emailing pictures
- If the specimen is out of focus, immature and not fully formed, or old and decaying, it is very unlikely that we will be able to identify it to species level with any confidence.
- Be aware that mushrooms or other fungi photographed only from the top with no chance of seeing the gills, pores, spines, stem or stem ring etc are usually not identifiable with any certainty. (If you make a spore print, do let us know what colour the spores are, because often this is an invaluable step towards a precise identification.)
- With flowers, it is very helpful to be able to see the leaves as well as blooms.
- Note that we cannot offer to try to identify large numbers of species, so please send only those you are having difficulty with or have doubts about - or of course something special that you would like to share with others via First Nature.
- Please let us know where you took the picture - country, approximate location, habitat if known (conifer forest, broadleaf woodland, limestone grassland, acid moorland; on the trunk of a beech tree, etc).
- State whether you are willing for us to show your picture on a First Nature web page should we so wish (and the name of the person to be credited as photographer)
Use this link to Email Other Pictures to our Algarve section...
Not all fungi and wildflowers can be identified to species level from pictures alone, but we will do our very best to help.
For general enquiries please email us via this link...
Please Help Us: If you have found this information interesting and useful, please consider helping to keep First Nature online by making a small donation towards the web hosting and internet costs.
Any donations over and above the essential running costs will help support the conservation work of Plantlife, the Rivers Trust and charitable botanic gardens - as do author royalties and publisher proceeds from books by Pat and Sue.