Well I fell far short of my required 73 new species over the final eight days of May, which would have landed me on 750. As it happened I barely managed to scrape across the 700 mark, adding just 26 new species in the end. Partly this is because I've been very busy at work, plus painting various folks' houses in my spare time, and I've had away days out of the square (and even off Skye on one occasion).
The good news is that the weather is still glorious and I have tomorrow off work. The light trap has thrown a modest selection of moths my way, including five that were lifers for me. In May I increased my 1KSQ tally from 611 to 703 species and added 16 lifers (from NG3963) to my PSL.
June needs to be an awful lot better than that!
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| Tachypeza nubila - 4mm of sheer amazingness! |
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| Whooper Swan - 1600mm of sheer awesomeness! |
No snazzy graphs and swanky visuals from me - so here's a dusty dry breakdown for you to yawn your way through instead :)
Algae - 44
Protists - 2
Lichen - 40
Fungi - 59
Bryophytes - 36
Plants - 198
Sponges - 1
Cnidarians - 1
Molluscs - 29
Bryozoans - 2
Annelids - 7
Platyhelminths - 6
Arachnids - 19
Myriapods - 11
Crustaceans - 11
Springtails - 2
Bristletails - 1
Odonata - 1
Orthopteroids - 1
Hemiptera - 10 - laughably low
Hymenoptera - 6 - quite pathetic
Coleoptera - 21 - oh dear...
Diptera - 34 - must try harder
Butterflies - 1
Moths - 55
Insects RSO - 9
Echinoderms - 1
Fish - 4
Amphibians - 2
Birds - 83
Mammals - 5
Others - 1 (nemertean worm)
As can be seen, I really ought to start looking at stuff with six legs sometime soon. My predictions/plans are famous for always being wildly off the mark, but I'm going to say that I'll be over 900 by the end of June. Of course, I have some of the country's most talented PSLers visiting at the end of the month (oh, and Ali, Tim and Pete are due too..) so who knows where the true tally will end up after that. I'm massively looking forward to showing them some cool species, and I'm bound to be shown some lifers too, but realistically that's just a bonus side-effect to providing the guys with a memorable weekend. Hopefully for all the right reasons!
Anyway, there's a Rose-coloured Starling playing hide and seek with me, found yesterday by another birder (as it flew through my square...grrrrrrr!) but I haven't relocated it yet. Full on adult too, proper Pink Stink rather than a grotty juv. Been a while since I saw an adult, over ten years in fact. I have my network of locals all keeping an eye out for it...
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| I'm not greedy, just one would do. Oh alright, so 60 would be kinda nice too :) |
Most surprising to me is the comparison of your insect totals versus bryophytes! The good news is we can probably bang out a whole lot of insects that you've held off listing so we can do them together, That's very sweet of you
ReplyDeleteI'm a very sweet kinda guy ;)
DeleteCan we do some fishing when we come up, Seth? Or can you borrow a beam trawler and get it into your bay? Surely we could get 20 new fishes, and have some of them for tea?
ReplyDeleteI can ask the local skippers if they'd let you jump aboard for a shift. Usually about 8 hours at a time and they only ever haul up prawns. But if you're keen... :)
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