Wednesday 27 April 2011

What to do when you run out of birds





I've been birding at Beddington since 1985 (26 years) when i was 12. I have now seen 210 species out of the 253 ever recorded, have found a first for Surrey, numerous firsts for Beddington, one or two BB rarities so now basically I am running out of ticks and milestones.....until...I discovered PAN SPECIES LISTING . It is like being born again- Derek reckons (excluding fungi and bacteria) that there could be up to 10,000 species of all life forms at Beddington and I am only on 210 (plus a few other bits). That's as much biodiversity on my local patch as all the bird species in the world. Its gonna keep me busy as I can't identify hardly any of it at the moment. Here's a few species (pics above), I think the bottom one is a Tachinid Fly and lest we forget the top one is a Lesser Whitethroat.

3 comments:

Alan Tilmouth said...

Never thought of running a moth trap Peter? There was a good intro article on birdguides a couple of weeks back.

Josh Jenkins Shaw said...

Welcome to the dark side...the top and bottom 'flies' look to be hover-flies of some description - the middle one could be a Tachinid ( microscope, disection jobbies mostly I think!) I've been Pan listing since around Feb now and its been great fun!
Josh

Peter Alfrey said...

Hi Alan,
I want to get a moth trap. At the moment I leave the bedroom lights on all night and leave the window open- which is pretty affective but my girlfriend wont stay over so a moth trap might be a better option. Will check out the birdguides article.

Hi Josh,
good to be on the dark side:-) looks like I need a microscope too. Its great to be a dude again!