On the 11th, 12th & 13th July, Pan-species Listing had a presence at our second Global Birdfair and we were again listing the whole event on the site and the nearby meadows, hedgerows and woodland. We were keen to beat our 2024 total of 641 species but I have only just this afternoon finished identifying all the specimens. Did we make it? You'll have to wait... The set up was the same as last year, Mike set up a laptop and screen on our stand so we could tick species off as we found them and Andy arrived on the Saturday. I ran six one hour bioblitzes each day at 10.00 am and 2.00 pm (it was much hotter than last year and they were tough) and as we'd done it last year, far more people knew to bring their records to us. Especially those camping and running moth traps.
Here's our stall, with this year's new recruit, Mark Colvin who helped out for all three days.What a legend! A huge thanks, Mark.
We had Gatekeeper and Humming-bird Hawk-moth in the stall before we had even set it up.
I ran a talk to kick things off and the first two bioblitzes were extremely hot, setting the scene for a sweltering weekend! It's great to see familiar faces at these events.
As per usual, I forgot to take photos of people or landscape shots for that matter - just close up shots of small invertebrates and moths in pots. The first trap we opened on the Saturday morning was really lively and I got a couple of lifers. Eudemis porphyrana is a Na species on apple (which is abundant there). I have been wanting to see this for years! As I close in on 10,000 species, I still find new species most days, averaging at more than one species each and every single day, even in places that don'tat first glance seem that exciting. If you hit any site hard and for long enough, you'll find something exciting!
The moth list for the weekend was nearly double that for 2024, as was the butterfly list. Purple Hairstreaks were doing very well. Then the Saturday bioblitzes started and we met this star, Billy! Billy and his mum Clare came out on two of our bioblitzes and we were all gobsmacked at how good a naturalist Billy already is at age 10. Not only that, he is super keen and really good at finding stuff and spotting things that are different (all the photos of us out int he field here were taken by Clare). You know it's going to be a great hour when species #1 is Osprey!
Billy found some great stuff too. Including this Stoat skull!
We turned a log and Billy knew this was a Lesser Stag Beetle straight away! I don't think I knew this species until I was about 30. He is planning to join us and help us out even more next year, and we look forward to seeing him then and how much his pan-species list has grown by then! Keep up the great work!
The best way to do well in natural history is to start when you are young, so he's on a tried and tested route to end up doing something really exciting in the field as he gets older.
I wandered around a bit more this year and found a few more interesting areas. There are some big old trees here and many of the more interesting beetles are deadwood associates. Such as Platystomos albinus (Nb). So, did we beat last year's total of 641 species? Too right, we smashed it with 824 species! Here is the breakdown compared to last year's stats, along with an accumulative total for both 2024 and 2025 combined.
Look at that accumulative total! In just six days over two years in July we have recorded 1,036 species at Global Birdfair 749 of which are invertebrates. Of the 824 species we recorded this year, 395 were not recorded in 2024. This is not surprising though, it's amazing how many invertebrates you only ever find one of when surveying. Pan-species Listing can help you become a really great all-round naturalist but when we are considered collectively we can be formidable. A massive thanks to everyone who contributed records, especially Ben Rumsby and his dad (and for turning my trap on when I was off site) and also to Neil Phillips.
Next year I will be doing book signings, as it is due to be published on the 27th January 2026. You can pre-order it
here. You can sign up to pan-species listing
here for free!
And finally, here's all 824 species from those three days! I have highlighted the 17 invertebrate species with conservation status here in bold with their abbreviated status.
UDATE: I should add that we were not policing or verifying other people's records that were brought to us here, all species were accepted on face value and the records to be submitted directly by each observer. Away from moths and birds, most of the records were ours however. Also, thanks to Skev it seems that Monochroa palsutrella is a county first (we trapped this on an amazing tropical night on the 11th to 12th along with quite a few wanderers and lots of by-catch).
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