I have had a break from social media for the last month. This was triggered by a period of feeling really unwell for a while, a trip to A&E after six hours of agonising stomach ache and nausea and a yellow eye (of course, I still went rock-pooling in the dark in gale in this state). I self-diagnosed gallstones and this was confirmed by an ultrasound at the hospital. A radical and rather rapid change in what and how I eat has been extremely successful but it was really scary at first. Every time I ate something it was like playing Russian roulette with my dinner. So the only way to play it was to eat the perfect diet. Not only have I not had a serious attack for nearly four weeks, but I actually feel healthier than I ever have! So I used that time to get my head down and write up a lot of reports.
So, back to 2025. This was a tough year to rank, there were so many red letter days last year. I love the pan-species listing approach to natural history, even 15 years into it (and 38 years since I made my first biological record) there are still countless encounters of amazing wildlife to see and record in the British Isles. So to celebrate that, with each of these ten I will also give a reason to get into pan-species listing. In reverse order then...
10). My first encounter with Eelgrass beds
Back in March, Mark Telfer took me to Seaview on the Isle of Wight where I saw my first Straight-nosed Pipefish! Also on that trip I found these things new to the Isle of Wight at Bembridge Ledges. Sarcodityon catenatum.
PSL pushes you outside your comfort zone into ever strange new worlds of natural history!
9). Surveying the farmland around Brighton
This is an ongoing project I am doing for BHCC. I found a population of Woolly Thistle, the first in Sussex for many years.
A population of Tettigometra virescens was new to Sussex! This is landscape is vitally important for biodiversity.
If you work anywhere hard enough and long enough with PSL, it will come up with the goods.
8). Completing pipefish on Helford Sound in Cornwall
I spent a great day with Finley Hutchinson down on some more Eelgrass beds just round the corner from Falmouth. Deep-snouted Pipefish was a highlight, as it was my sixth and final pipefish in the UK! Yet finding Acanthocardia paucicostata new to me (and Cornwall) was a real highlight!
Some of the best PSL days are when you don't have any targets and you just find what you find.
7). The arable margins of the Norfolk Estate
This might have been the sixth year I have monitored these same eight margins, but in 2025 they were rocket fuel for migrants and recent colonists. I love living on the south coast! The first confirmed breeding of Carporcoris purpureipennis in the UK was great and a lifer for me!
Yet I think finding my first ever Small Marbled was my highlight.PSL is all about the long game. PSL definitely works best the earlier you start and as such, you could play this game for your whole life!
6). My third trip to Jersey
Now, I have to say it's testament to the following five highlights that Jersey rockpools are not higher up this list! A huge thanks to Nicolas Jouault for showing us around the marine habitats of the island. He was so generous with his time and I learnt so much from him. I was so glad to be there when he found Discodoris rosi new to the island. This absolute unit is Dendrodoris limbata. In fact, 2025 was the year of the nudibranch for me. I have seen 35 species so far in my life, ALL of which I also saw in 2025.
The main PSL listing area is 'Britain, Ireland, Isle of Wight and Channel Islands' and it's important to state we are not a recording platform. PSL is something you do as well as recording, not instead of.
5). Praying Mantis on the Isle of Wight
Seeing these breeding Praying Mantis with Mark Telfer was an absolute dream come true, this is probably the only twitch I did last year! In a normal year this should been number 1!
That evening, Karen I went to Bembridge Ledges and found this mollusc new to the island! Galeomma turtoni.
No PSL twitch ever happens in a vacuum. Even if you do dip, there's always a plan B...
4). Oh gawd this is getting tough now! You know it's an insane year when Rainbow Sea Slug isn't even in the top three!
It was a dream come true seeing three Rainbow Sea Slugs down at Falmouth with a whole bunch of keen PSLers, rockpoolers and naturalists.
It would seem you can't go out rockpooling at Falmouth now without seeing Spurilla neopolitana now too! Insane considering it only turned up in September.
PSL is about collaboration and cooperation, we all help each other out. If you have focused on the competitive side, you have totally missed the point. There are no losers in this game.
3). Meeting a whole bunch of brilliant Gen Z naturalists at Menai (and their sea slugs)
Meeting Nathan, Yolanda, Cameron and friends under Menai bridge several times this year was amazing, as well as seeing loads of amazing nudibranchs they have given me hope for the future! They're already brilliant naturalists, I am glad they've caught the PSL bug too! Here is Trinchesia cuanensis.
And Coryphella lineata. Just a few of the amazing beasts they showed me!
PSL is a really sociable way to do natural history. Yes, you can do it on your own but it's more fun to share some of it at least, some of the time and I have made a lot of great friends along the way.
2). Two days snorkelling on The Ecrehous
Thanks to Nicolas Jouault again, I had an amazing two days snorkelling on the uninhabited islands between Jersey and France. Black-faced Blennies were the commonest fish!
And this bonkers looking crustacean, Axius stirhynchus was a real highlight. I couldn't get out of the water. Amazing considering not two years ago I was frightened of putting my face in the water!
PSL breakdowns barriers and encourages you to be fearless - whether tackling a new group or jumping face first into a rockpool!
1). Finding Aulonia albimana on the Isle of Wight with Mark Telfer
This was the first record of Aulonia albimana in the UK in 40 years! It was a very exciting day and led to me sitting on the sofa on BBC Breakfast. The story got amazing coverage, I did six interviews and I think something like 70 media outlets ran the story!
The morning after we found the spider, at 5.00 am I went down to Bembridge Ledges and found another new nudibranch for me, it was only the second record for the island! Trapania tartanella!
PSL is great fun, it's exciting, it opens doors. Literally anything can happen at any time. So why not sign up now? It's free and the 1st January is a great time to start something new.
A quick update on the book. Publication has been put back a little to the 26th February! Not long now, you can pre-order it here.
Now it's time to start my 2026 challenge, to see 6,000 species over the year! I have seen a Human so far, so I better get to work! Yo can follow my progress on the website, only 5,999 species to go. Happy listing!
Yep! That's an Aulonia albimana spiderling, a Critically Endangered/Nationally Rare and rather odd little wolf spider that no one has ever digitally photographed in the UK, as it was last seen here 40 years ago in 1985! Madonna's "Like a Virgin" was in the charts the last time this was seen here. So how on Earth did we managed to find it? Well, like all such adventures it started with a hunch. Mark Telfer has a 'Species Recovery Project' contract this year, lead by the National Trust and funded by Natural England. Part of the brief was to try and find Aulonia albimana. It has only ever been found at three disparate sites in England (check out the SRS page here) but the Isle of Wight site is on MOD land and furthermore, has scrubbed over. Making it simultaneously not worth visiting and nearly impossible to get to. This spider seems to like short, bare areas with broken turf. Which may be dry or recently wet - it's not all that clear.
When I was over at the end of August to see the mantises, I offered to come out for the day with all batteries fully charged but spending over half of September in rockpools chasing nudibranchs, it ended up drifting into October. Yet my theory was that in early autumn, there are always loads of wolf spiders in the suction sampler. They are typically sub-adult Pardosa that are mostly impossible to identify but hugely outnumber the adults they become the following spring (after a winter of being whittled down in nature's great reality TV show elimination process). Yet Aulonia is very different to all other wolf spiders here. It's in a genus of its own. It's tiny (3-4 mm as an adult) and it's odd looking: It's gracile with orange legs (except the front femora are contrastingly black) and most famously of all, it has white 'knuckles' to the palps. All of these features are clearly evident in immatures (which Roberts also states), so we didn't need to find an adult to prove this species is still present. This was an epic long shot - we were about 2 km from where it was last seen but I was buoyed up by a successful British Arachnological Society trip to Wicken Fen at the weekend and on a roll. And I do love an epic long shot. I almost forgot, Mark had another target; the saltmarsh wolfie Arctosa fulvolineata.
Any day in the field that requires two boat rides (although my first was a ferry) has to produce something memorable. Especially as it was dead calm, mild, with not a drop of dew and with more sun than forecast. As perfect as you could get for a field day in October. We were kindly shuttled out by the NT Harbour Master to this tiny area called Brickfields in Newtown Harbour. You can't get there directly due to the MOD firing range. Here's Mark and Jo Hodgkins (Mark's wife and NT advisor) as we head out to Brickfields. After a 15 minute boat ride, were unloaded at a narrow wooden jetty.
It was about 10.00 am. We had to be back at the jetty promptly at 2.00 pm. The clock was ticking.
T-MINUS 240 MINUTES
The narrow shore line was littered with old bricks. "This looks perfect for Arctosa fulvolineata" I said. I got turning, I had turned about 10 bricks when Mark turned his first one and found it! New to the island and a rare beast in its own right (Nationally Rare, Near Threatened & Section 41). It's going to be one of those days then (I turned another 60 bricks and nothing)! Amazing how these things cope with twice daily inundation during these big tides at least. The intergrade between habitats is remarkable here; saltmarsh, scrub, ancient woodland, grassland, soft rock cliffs and damp Wood Small-reed clumps all occur on a postage stamp size area of land. We got the vacs out along the southern upper saltmarsh edge. Hundreds of Silometopus ambiguus peppered the sampling trays. Nationally Scarce but pretty common on saltmarshes. I vac'd an immature Liocranoeca striata (also Nationally Scarce), and last seen on the island 40 years ago. Here's the Arctosa.
And one of Mark's shots of it. Look at that beast!
Heading inland, we walked into this strange looking meadow. It had clearly been grazed quite well at some point this year. I first thought it was tightly grazed chalk-grassland but a closer look revealed, as well as species like Knapweed, Burnet-saxifrage and Yellow-wort, there were lots of old meadow species too. Chiefly Saw-wort, Pepper-saxifrage and a bit of Dyer's Greenweed. Here's some of Jo's photos (as usual, I forget to take any landscape shots or shots of us surveying).
We vac'd a little but were mostly finding lots of Pardosa (mainly young Pardosa nigriceps), Alopecosa pulverulenta and a few Pisaura mirabilis. Hahnia nava was abundant too but there was little else here. Round the corner, a scrubbier ungrazed version of the same grassland type tempted us.
We found a few nice things here but it didn't feel right to me for Aulonia. We had Myrmarachne formicaria (Nationally Scarce but well represented on the Isle of Wight), Clubiona diversa, and some typically more wetland species. Mark vac'd two Crustulina sticta here (Nationally Scarce) that were new to the Isle of Wight. We only had about an hour left. We headed to some north facing, partly vegetated soft tock cliffs.
T-MINUS 60 MINUTES
The sun was out by now but we didn't find a lot. What was there was interesting though. I spotted a young Wood Cricket and a Lesne's Earwig. Mark vac'd an interesting Leiodes but the spiders beyond the large young Pardosa and immature Myrmarachne there were thin on the ground. We had about 20 minutes left so I thought I would vac the meadow hard.
T-MINUS 20 MINUTES
I was finding just the same species as before but I hadn't given up. By this point we were at the southern end of the meadow, within shouting distance of the jetty. Time was running out!
T-MINUS 9 MINUTES
Mark and Jo headed back to the jetty to get ready, I was determined to keep going up to the bitter end. There in the vac was a thin, black bodied and yellow-egged spider moving like a wolfie but not much bigger than Hahnia nava. Could it be? I had fought really hard all day to keep my search image focused not on wolf spiders like Pardosa but for something small like a Hahnia or Micaria - it payed off. I got it in a tube had a closer look. There were those pale palpal 'knuckles'. "MAAAAAAARRRRRK!!!" I yelled. Here is the first ever digital photo of Aulonia albimana taken in the UK!
T-MINUS 5 MINUTES
With one shoe on and one shoe off, Mark "Diddle Diddle Dumpling" Telfer came hurtling into the meadow. I was shaking with excitement at this point and barely coherent. Uncontrollable laughter erupted from all persons. But we had five minutes left. No time to waste chuckling like fools! I had one more chance to vac this end of the meadow. I only went and found another one!
T-MINUS 1 MINUTE
I could hear the outboard approaching but there was another immature in the tray, time for a few quick snaps! That has to be the best spider find of my life. Utterly stoked.
My hasty attempt at a habitat shot as we dived over the style into the boat.
WOW, that was an intense end to an awesome day in the field. So here's where we were in relation to the last place it was seen 40 years ago, some 1.86 km away. It could well be in all such suitable habitat in this area.
Here are some better shots of mine.
And a great shot Mark took down the microscope. That pale area on the palp clearly visible here. I suggest we give this spider the common name White-knuckled Wolf Spider for more reasons than one!
My 559th spider in the British Isles and probably the best one of them all. White-knuckle, high-octane arachnological gold dust on a biblical scale. Now I did go on to do two low tides before I left the island the following morning, but in the interests of staying on message, I will talk about the awesome new nudibranch I found some other time. It made the whole 24 hours just magical.
What I love about this record is that it only happened through collaboration and lots of things coming together. Mark's hunch, his contract and the fact he moved to the island, Jo's work with the NT and my stubbornness and relentless energy all came together to make this happen. Add in that ticking clock to make that one of the most memorable four hours of my natural history life! Thanks for letting me tag along Mark! If you ever a hunch, no matter what the odds are, just go for it - 99% of this game is just turning up.
On Saturday morning I became aware that Tony Davis had found a population of Praying Mantis (Mantis religiosa) near Ventnor, on the Isle of Wight on the previous day. So soon after this I booked a ferry and some accommodation for one night on the island as the tides were pretty good. By 10.30 am on the Sunday, Mark Telfer was showing me these incredible animals. Almost certainly a natural population that must have arrived at least a year ago by jumping the Channel. We found seven in about an hour and a half, four females and three males. Two of the females were clearly gravid. Here's a shot Mark took of me with one on my hand!
It was insanely cool to see these animals, even if all these new species are coming here due to climate change. I then had two days left on the island and a few fairly good low tides, so I thought I would make myself useful and do some recording. I wasn't expecting to get a mollusc new to the Isle of Wight! Anyway. before that, here are the rest of my favourite shots of the mantises.
Before I found the first mantis, I netted this Anania verbascalis, I think this is only the second time I have seen it. A scarce pyralid that feeds on Wood Sage.
Boat Bug Enoplops scapha seems to be common there!
Just as we were leaving, I stumbled on a small patch of Bastard-toadflax, which amazingly had the shieldbug Canthophorus impressus on it! It was an unforgettable hour and a half on that hillside. A huge thanks to Mark for his time and all his gen.
Before the marine stuff though, I got quite a few plant lifers. First off the super rare Field Cow-wheat, just about still in flower.
A trip to a certain valley to see Wood Calamint!
I bumped into John Poland who was with Paul Stanley, so I indulged in some 'grotany' around Ventnor Botanic Gardens and saw loads of awful plants, like this Amaranthus blitum.
But the sea was calling me and I was desperate to get some snorkelling and rock-pooling in at Bembridge Ledges. I only found three nudibranchs on this trip and none were species I hadn't seen before. Polycera quadrilineata were in the Wireweed straight under the lifeboat station.
I assume this is an adult Aeolidiella alderi. Much smaller animals were common here in the spring but I only saw this larger one this time. Very high up the shore.
And Edumndsella pedata is rapidly becoming the species I see most frequently (although I have not seen it in Sussex yet).I did get a couple of new molluscs, including a living Warty Venus Venus verrucosa.
But then, I stumbled on something rather exciting. This bizarre bivalve. It was moving around like a sea slug but with its (vestigial?) shell on top of its body. Imagine opening your glasses case and plonking it on your bonce, and you get the idea. I was impatient to find out what it was being tired and away from my books, so thank to Nathan Jackson for his help (by the way, if you want to lose the top spot for all your marine taxa groups on the PSL website, then encouraging a very keen naturalist with a passion for marine life to sign up is the way to do that). It's Galeomma turtoni and it seems to be new to the Island. In fact, the only records I can find away from the Channel Islands are from my local patch The Pound of all places in 2018 and according to Roger Herbert it was found by divers in Portland Harbour. Oh and it's also been found on he Isles of Scilly. How cool! it has the ridiculous common name of Turton's Weasel-eye.
Here's a couple of Turton's Weasel-eyes, this really doesn't sound right to me. Oh no, I have gone down a rabbit-hole. Is the pleural of weasel-eye, weasel-eyes or weasel's-eyes? That sounds even weirder. Snap out of it Graeme, it's not important!It was a whirlwind few days but a great deal of fun. I added 20+ species I think. Sunrise at Bembridge Ledges is just sublime!
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