Sunday, September 15, 2013

Finally ...

For me this was not the year to take on a challenge like this with too many other things going on in my life but finally, after months of tortoise-like progress, I have somehow reached the 1000 species mark!

The morning started well with family commitments fulfilled by mid morning, and I felt like 1000 was in sight by the end of the day. A short walk to the station and back before lunch produced:
973      the very common spider Zygiella atrica from oak foliage
974      meadow pipit – one calling over my garden      
  975      common crossbill – 2 over the village   
  976      Adonia variegata (Adonis ladybird)  - swept from tall grass
  977      Himacerus mirmicoides (ant damsel bug) – swept from black horehound
  978      Meripilus giganteus (giant polypore) - on birch stump     
  979      Ustulina deusta (a crustose fungus) – ditto.        
 
I had great plans for a major sweep netting session after lunch but disaster struck – rain!  In desperation I resorted to a couple of hours photographing and collecting lichens -(something I had hoped to avoid) and out of about 40 species I was able to confidently identify 21: 
980        Caloplaca aurantia
981        Candelariella aurella
982        Cladonia coniocrae
983        Cladonia fimbriata
984        Diploicia canescens
985        Lecanora campestris
986        Lecanora dispersa
987        Lecanora muralis
988        Lecanora polytropa
989        Lepraria incana
990        Melanelia subaurifera
991        Neofuscelia verruculifera
992        Parmelia sulcata
993        Phaeophyscia orbicularis
994        Physcia adscendens
995        Physcia tenella
996        Punctelia subrudecta
997        Tephromela atra
998        Verrucaria nigrescens
999        Xanthoparmelia mougeotii
1000      Xanthoria parietina
 
I will carry on, though with invertebrates drying up and plants done to death, I don’t expect to get too many more – 1100 now sounds like a challenge, but who knows … I still have a fair few flies and beetles in alcohol, and I haven't had a go at bryophytes yet.
 
Tim

 

2 comments:

  1. Did you know that that you can earn money by locking selected pages of your blog / website?
    Simply join Mgcash and add their content locking tool.

    ReplyDelete