TG3208: The final curtain

Back to work tomorrow so for me the journey is over, bar a few more late specimen IDs (if I can bring myself to face those click beetles, sawflies and crane-flies that beat me first time around). This month progress was deathly slow until the chrismas break allowed time in the field for a final push. The final month for TG3208 looks like this:

Dec 1st
1094.  Fox - at last, calling at night long enough for me to get out of bed and open the window and rule out deer, dogs, etc
Dec 8th
1095. Teal - another elusive one, flushed from a small pond on the edge of the village.
Dec 11th
1096. Andricus quercuscalicus - full grown larva in knopper gall.
Dec 23rd
1097. Snipe - in stream on edge of village.
1098. Lycoperdon pyriforme - a little puffball.
1099. Weld (Reseda lutea) - somehow missed this earlier.
Dec 27th
1100. Flammulina velutipes (velvet tough shank) - on dying sycamore trunk.
1101. Italian lords and ladies (Arum italicum) - noticed earlier in year but confirmed by autumn flush of fresh leaves.
1102. Ramalina farinacea - the lichen.
1103. Narrow buckler fern (Dryopteris carthusiana) - in Church Fen.
1104. Japanese knotweed (Fallopia japonica) - another plant that has been surprisingly hard to find alive due to a spate of control around the village in the last couple of years.
1105. Small-leaved privet (Ligustrum sinense)- Church Fen.
Dec 28th
1106. Gadwall - on the usually birdless Brundall Broad.
1107. Demetrias imperialis - a notable gound beetle, dug out of a Typha stem at Church Fen.

The notable reedbed specialist beetle Demetrias imperialis

1108. Scolopostethus thomsoni - a groundbug dug from the same Typha stem.
1109. Hypotrachyna revoluta - a lichen.
1110. Purple small reed (Calamagrostis canescens) - very dead but indentifiable by ruling out all other tall grasses - Church Fen.
Dec 29th
1111. A spider Clubiona neglecta - one of many Clubionas inside marsh sowthistle stems but the only one with an epigyne distinctive enough to confidently identify.
1112. A rove beetle Ontholestes murinus - captured in the summer (from my compost heap I think) but only now identified.
1113. A diving beetle Nebrioporus elegans - another pickled beetle from earlier in the year.

I am sure the 1113 total may shrink a little when county recorders question some critical ID, but I hope not by much as I have tried to err on the side of caution and rejected dozens of possibles/ probables. I don't think I will repeat the challenge next year since I have other things I want to do but I will still endeavour to add records to the 1 km square list, and I will encourage others to have a go and provide support to any who do. My new years resolution will be to continue recording and developing my skills with the groups I have tackled for the first time this year - beetles, bugs and several fly families.

Happy New Year everybody and good species hunting in 2014!

Tim