I reckon all birders keep lists of some sort. Some might deny this but from my experience it is an inherent activity for birders of all shapes, sizes and levels of expertise. Some people keep a list of garden birds, a local patch list, a British List, a Life List or all of them but birders don't hold a monopoly on list keeping.
There is another level entirely. The Pan Species Lister. I wont go into to much detail here other than to say it is the collection, in list form and of records of everything from Killer Whales to Lichen. For a fuller dive into it see here where Graeme Lyons explains it like a boss.
Graeme has written a book all about it -
I have recently finished reading this tome and can say it is an excellent read. It is jam packed with tips, info, anecdotes on how to tackle the mind boggling 72,000 species that live or visit our islands.
If you aspire to become a 'super naturalist' of even a mediocre one, there is no better place to start. The link I added above is to the PSL website where you can get involved. It is a partnership with BUBO listing that a lot of birders are familiar with. These two learning channels have inspired me to add my own tally to the mix. I have had a spreadsheet with most of my own records on for quite a few years now but as with all spreadsheets they become cumbersome and full of typos. The website helps iron these flaws out.
But whats the point of species accumulation you might wonder? Well, its not just for the list per se its more about the collation of records as a way of monitoring groups of species that might otherwise be overlooked. We cant help conserve species unless we know where they are and how many etc. Things like Birds, Moths, Butterflies etc have details records going back hundreds of years but what about Slugs for example? Garden weeds? Cat fleas! they are all a part of our biodiversity that should be monitored just like breeding Ospreys or Otters.
So my species are now up on the site for anyone to see. One good feature of the site I found was the targets button. Once you have added all of your species, you can then see what you have missed or are missing. This shows what all other listers have seen that you haven't in order of abundance, ie the commonest or most widespread first. Using this I realised that Holly was missing off my Vascular Plants list, amongst other common species.
It is also interesting to compare with other PSLers, though competing with the top tier is not possible for me, its still makes good reading. For example the top of the list by some margin is ruled by Jonty Denton with over 13,000 species. Yet I have seen 9 out of his top 10 missing species. That is scarcely credible.
This is my take on the Flora and Fauna of the UK so far -
A modest 2,413 species placing me at 110 in the rankings table.
My top 5 targets that everyone else has seen most of are - Roesel's Bush Cricket, seen by 250 other listers, Grizzled Skipper seen by 236, Chalkhill Blue seen by 235, Hairy Shieldbug by 218 and Black Arches by 217. Definitely a geographical bias going on here.
My precious few Blockers ( rarest species on my list) are Steatoda paykulliana a confession straight up, this False Widow Spider was found in some supermarket grapes that some people deem untickable, but I'm having it! and a moth Xenolechia aethiops both not seen by any of the other listers.
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| Xenolechia aethiops from my garden. |
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| Steatoda paykulliana in grapes. Well it is wild, people tick worse ( Pheasant for example) |
Going forward this should add a lot of interest to days out ( or even in the house for that matter). Targets? I would like to get to 800 moths!
Postscript - Another book I have also just read goes well with PSL -
