I'm in 5th place!
Posted by Graeme Lyons , Tuesday 24 May 2011 18:53
OK, I'm not really competitive, honest. But, I have just reached 3373 species, which puts me three ahead of Martin Harvey and into 5th place on the pan-species list rankings. Now, I know that Martin will have seen loads of things since he updated his list (I emailed Martin to say this day was coming and he said as such). So, I get a very brief moment in 5th place before Martin's list is updated. I have added a few more species today including this Galeruca tanaceti, a chrysomelid, that was at Malling today. I also spotted the small Nb chafer Omaloplia ruricola at Southerham but it was too active to get a photo. So, I still have 627 species to go before I reach 4000 but how am I doing? Assuming an even spread of ticks throughout the year at a rate of 2.7 a day I should be on 3395 by now, I'm only 22 behind that. However, the start of the year is the worst part with very little to add so the months are not at all comparable (I added 95 species in April alone and I have added 87 so far this May). I reckon I am about bang on target to get to 4000 by the end of December!
When you said on the 'phone earlier that you 'had a few ticks today' were you referring to new additions to your list or actual ticks - like Ixodes / Lymes Disease ticks? I'm confused.