I have just got back from a well-needed mini break, something I always do to mark the change between the winter ID and write up period and the start of my field season. A few months back, Nathan Jackson (one of a bunch of incredibly talented young naturalists from Bangor University) invited me a long to a trip he was planning from Bangor to Falmouth. Now I was down there in November where I spent some time with Finley Hutchinson (one of a bunch of incredibly talented young naturalists from the Penryn campus of Exeter University). Furthermore, we coincidentally had a contingent from Hampshire, including John and Tara, as well as my mate Kim from Brighton and loads of other people. We mopped up back in November with just a few of us, so with the dozens of eyes in the rock-pools this time, with very much a focus on nudibranchs, there was no way I was missing this. I could only do four nights though, so have had to suck up getting gripped off by amazing stuff being found before I arrived and (still ongoing) after I left. Yet I cannot complain, this was one of the best four days natural history of my life.
Yet the opening image of this post is of two bull Killer Whales (this is one of Nathan's shots). Apparently, they are slightly larger than the largest nudibranch, this was quite possibly one of the most magical and unexpected moments of my life. So how on Earth did we go from turning rocks for sea slugs to running after Orcas along the cliffs like feral children? You'll have to wait...
Day 1. Karen and I left Brighton at 3.55 am to arrive at Falmouth for 10.00 am, comfortably making the first low tide. Finley suggested some new areas at Tunnel Beach and that place was really productive. So I think we collectively saw at least 20 species of nudibranch on this trip, I saw 19 I think and eight of those were lifers. First up, check out this little nerd! Rostanga rubra is such a cute little dude, it's the only only nudibranch to wear corrective lenses over its rhinophores.
My second nudibranch lifer of the day is also another common one down there but I think its my favourite. As pure white as the driven snow, with the weirdest shaped chocolate-coloured rhinophores. The best thing about this is that it is perfectly camouflaged to hide among the pure-white nudibranch eggs that it specialises in feeding on. Favorinus branchialis. See if you can spot this one hiding in the eggs. What I love about this one, is that it makes finding nudibranch eggs even more exciting. I really fancy some shredded coconut after looking at these pictures.
But Rainbow Sea Slug Babakina anadoni was playing hard to get, then I stumbled on this huge animal. Not the first time I have seen one but it's such a wonderful moment every time you turn a rock and see this. Even better though is showing it to people for the first time, it's such a privilege to be able to do that with wildlife this spectacular.Probably the best sea slug I found I didn't even photograph, Okenia nodosa is scarce at Falmouth (but really common at my nearest patch). Next up, a long overdue lifer for me under the first rock Cameron Wilkins turned over. Jorruna tomentosa, I didn't get a good photo but there were quite a few of these rather plain but attractive little dorids about.
Karen spotted her own Limacia clavigera, they are really common down there.
Nathan walked right up to this stalked jellyfish, which was a lifer for me (I have only seen three species, all of which I saw at Falmouth in the first two days of this trip). This one is Halycistus octoradiatus with those odd tubercles at the base of the stubby tentacles. It's a rather sickly green colour too.
And this snail was quite the looker, we had one here and one at Silver Steps the following day. Raphitoma purpurea, yet another lifer.
The weather was glorious on that first day, so there was some chance for some spidering in Falmouth after, Ero aphana was popular and I managed three year ticks. I got sunburnt on the last day of March!
Now, I am well known for being pretty intense and having a lot of energy, but I had to look after my health on this trip and not start my field season in a state. So I only managed to go out on one night time session, the first night. After four hours sleep I was back out of the hotel wandering around the rocks but I was feeling really rough, so didn't make it all night. It was magic though!
Louis hoyed out a massive Lobster!And it wasn't long before Nathan made the kind of sounds that can only mean he'd found something exciting. Now I only managed a rubbish shot in a pot, but this is Calma gobioophaga. This nudibranch only feeds on the eggs of gobies, and apparently the eyes of the tiny fish it eats on the eggs can be spotted in their serrata! Yolanda told me about these last year, so this was an exciting find for everyone!
Day 2 (technically). It's just gone midnight now and Nathan spotted these two Atalodoris pusilla sitting next to each other like a pair of slippers. My fifth nudi lifer of the trip.
Louis got me onto these tiny but gorgeous little sea slugs, also a lifer (but not a nudibranch). They look like something out of Pokemon, they were only a couple of mm long though. Like a cross between a stegosaurus, a flower and a slug - Placidia dentrica is not rare but it is friggin' awesome!
As usual, fish are out and about more at night so I was pleased to find my first Montagu's Sea Snail in years and this was a lifer for all the Bangor lot.
As it neared 1.00 am, I felt like death warmed up, so headed home. They only went and found two more nudis that I had not seen. This one is Okenia aspersa in blob mode. Nudi lifer number six! I think six more Babakina were found that night too!
Talk about starting with a bang! By this point though it feels like Day 4 when it's still only Day 2! We head to Silver Steps. Finley found a big patch of nudi eggs covered in Favorinus, and there was a speedy Facelina annulicornis there too. We picked this up last November but this is the first time I have got a half-decent shot if it. What an absolute stunner that is!
We had two more staked jellyfish in the same gully, neither were new for me but I love seeing these. Calvadosia cruxmelitensis.
And Calvadosia campanulata.I found another Babakina. At least three were found that morning.
Now bear in mind it's April fool's day. I was just taking some shots of this when Finley yells that there is a report of Orca's swimming past the Lizard! It took us about ten minutes to realise the weight of what was happening before galavanising into action - just as Tylan had arrived, to see a wave of be-wadered rock-poolers running towards him. No, straight past him, to their cars! We all piled down to the Lizard (Tylan too) and about an hour later, this happened...
I love this shot of Yolanda's with the cliffs in too! Here are a couple of Nathan's. You could see the white behind the dorsal fin, even through my rubbish binoculars.It was Finley who got onto them really quickly though, like in less than 5 minutes. Finley followed by myself likely to be the first people to see Orca and Rainbow Sea Slug in the same hour. Here's the prostrate form of me creating my own mud bath in excitement. Tylan here is wondering if its possible to suction sample an Orca.
Day 3. This was quite possibly my favorite day. Helford Passage from 11.00 am to 2.00 pm on the sandy Eel-grass and then Kynance Cove with Tylan and Paul from 3.00 pm to 6.00 pm.Auger Shells, three species of pipefish, cockles in numbers but it was this huge egg mass that got me excited, as I had never seen anything like it before. It turns out to be the egg mass of Pleurobranchus membranaceus. They had an adult after I left which I missed but the eggs were cool enough!
One nudibranch was everywhere - Amphorina andra. Now this might be something else entirely in the genus, we'll have to wait and see as Finley is going to get the DNA done one one but for the time being I am calling it that, will edit if there are changes. The orange form was most common.And I had a few of these darker ones with mottled serrata. They really are quite stunning.
Then Yolanda caught a Nursehound with her bare hands! I have only ever seen the egg cases, so chuffed to see an adult.
Here's a Spiny Cockle.And Finley showing three species together. Acanthocardia paucicostata (the small one - which I had there new to Cornwall in November). Spiny Cockle Acanthocardia aculeata on the right and Rough Cockle Acanthocardia tuberculata on the left. It's 2.00 pm and my alarm rings, so I have to leave everyone to head to Kynance!
It was just the three of us (Tylen Berry, Paul Gainey and myself). The weather was glorious. Now I am really here to year list spiders, bugs and rare plants! I ticked off Hairy Greenweed and Cornish Heath soon enough, along with Lousewort and Heath Milkwort. Choughs were everywhere.
Tylan found most of the rare spiders instantly! Gnaphosa occidentalis under the first rock. I spotted an adult male Aelurillus v-insignitis. Euophrys herbigradus was in every suction!
Ty found an adult female Porrhoclubiona genevensis. We had about 15 Thyme Lacebugs too. As we found Segestria bavarica as we were watching the Orcas the day before, that was pretty much the whole set. We went on to look for House Centipede under some rocks, it was fruitless but this tiny bug caught me eye. It's Taphropeltus hamulatus. A really scarce bug with only five records on the NBN, one of which is for Kynance! I have been looking out for this for years.
We scrambled down the slope for a few ants. Ponera testacea somehow appeared in one of Tylan's pots. Lasaeola prona ticked for the year when Ty found two rather odd looking crabbies. Now I see Ozyptila claveata all the time on the chalk, so I was sure they were not that. Ty sees Ozyptila blackwalli enough to know it wasn't that either. Could this be Ozyptila scabricula?! Indeed it was! Check out these perfect little gargoyles. Ty found another male too, these being the first in Cornwall since 1968 and an entirely new hectad. Mad for a site he works really hard, and it just goes to show no matter how hard you work a site, there are still treasures to be found! This is my 564th spider in the British Isles. I was not expecting a spider lifer this week.
Day 4: Winding now, one final trip to Tunnel Beach produced much of the same, but Finley was on fire with his small crustaceans, including pointing Vicky Barlow to search the mouth of a huge Spiny Spider Crab for a host-specific thing called Isaea montagui, what a bizarre creature.I found a Topknot the size of my face.
When suddenly a report of a Killdeer comes in from the other end of the county! "Oh god, it's happening again" I hear Karen mutter. Another mad thing with 'kill' in the name to twitch. Scrambling up the rocks and piling into cars, and an hour later I am looking at my first Killdeer (thanks to Finley for the photo) in the same hour (nearly) as a Rainbow Sea Slug. Thanks to James for the lift (and for getting me back in time for the dinner we had planned, I arrived at the restaurant on time to the minute).
This has all been a bit rushed. I am starting field work in a couple of hours but if I didn't get this done today it wouldn't happen. There are likely some typos and errors in here, so please let me know. A HUGE thanks to everyone involved for sharing their finds and knowledge, a massive thanks to Finley and Nathan for organising stuff. Once again though, it's great seeing so many young people get as excited as I do when I see new things, it's absolutely awesome. More of this please!
Oh and a quick update on the 6000 Species Challenge! As of today I am on 1,756 species (29.3%). A couple of days ago I hit 1,000 inverts for the year (on 1,022) including 118 molluscs and 221 spiders. Yet, as the field season starts, the year-listing begins in earnest today!
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!
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