The Lyons Share

I just spent an hour trying to key out an ichneumon wasp I found in a moth trap at Woods Mill last week. I was sent a key by Dr Gavin Broad of the NHM to nocturnal ichneumons (in other words, the ones that turn up in moth traps!). I think this is Netelia virgata but I cannot be sure, I can't even find any pictures of it on the Internet. I'll send it off and we shall have to wait and see. I don't think though I will be getting huge numbers of ticks this way...

I am going to start a new feature, a monthly update on the 1st of each month showing what I have added to my all-taxa list in the preceding month. It became too time consuming to update it each time I saw something new. Once a month it is then. And what a month! Firstly, I should say that some of the ticks this month are actually things I saw years ago and had forgotten about, hence the huge jump since the last update.  I was on 2834 on the 10th September, by the 1st October I reached 2951! So, where have most of the ticks come from? Fungi, I have been really lazy with fungi until recently and I am really starting to get the bug.

Vascular plants	1044
Moths	761 (+23)
Birds	331 (+2)
Beetles	195 (+12)
Fungi	127 (+58)
Mosses	83 (+6)
Butterflies	50
True flies	49
Mammals	38
Molluscs	37 (+3)
Fish	36
Spiders	32
Dragonflies	29
True bugs	28 (+7)
Crickets & grasshoppers	18
Aculeates	18 (+1)
Liverworts	18 (+6)
Crustaceans	17 (+3)
Lichen	10 (+6)
Amphibians	6
Reptiles	6 (+1)
Seaweeds & algae	5
Anemones	4
Cockroaches	3
Caddisflies	2
Earwigs	1
Ant-lion	1
Lacewings	1
Leeches	1