1000 Species

How easy would it be to see one thousand species of animal, in Britain, in ten years? I think, it depends. I read the other day there are seven thousand species of fly in the UK so, on that basis, pretty easy. Except, importantly, a lot of those flys are very very similar, and small, and (without a microscope and a degree in entomology) not very easy to tell apart. And I’m not doing a degree in entomology. I’m not learning the infinite variety in very small flies. So…

Without becoming an expert in small insects, you are looking at an attempt to see somewhere between two hundred and four hundred birds*, some fraction of our one hundred mammals**, just over fifty species of butterfly, just over fifty species of dragonfly, less than twenty reptiles and amphibians, some fish, a lot of moths, a lot of other insects…

It’s doable, but not easy. If I learnt how to scuba dive I could get the fish list up but it’s not something I’ve ever fancied having a go at. I’ll probably only see fish if they are swimming near the top of the canal.

More importantly, seeing a thousand species of animal in the UK requires two things  One, I will need to go to places I haven’t been before. Two, I will need to look at places I am familiar with in a new way. What is living in my garden? I guess I’m going to find out. Seeing one thousand British species of animal in the next ten years is one of seven things I’m hoping to do in my fifties. When I get a minute, I’ll set up a page on here with my list so far and update it every now and again so you can see my progress.

I started last week and it struck me almost immediately how little I knew about insects. I saw at least four species of dragonfly on one day last week but I couldn’t put any of them on my list because I didn’t know what they were. Every bird I saw, I knew what it was. Same with the (two) mammals I saw. Even the lizard I found sunning itself on a bit of wood was pretty easy to identify. It was in Yorkshire and it had legs, so it was a common lizard. But dragonflies? I’m going to have to a bit of research. A bit of entomology after all. But not a degree. I don’t think. Probably.

Oh, and the fox in the picture? I put a fair few two pence pieces in that machine on a trip to Scarborough last weekend but I could not get him over the edge. He’s probably still there if you want to give winning him a go.

* depending on how many rares you are willing to chase

** a lot of British mammals are a combination of shy and nocturnal, or live in the sea