Numbers

Things are a bit quieter now the summer's drawn to a close. A few fungi are being thrown onto the pile and hopefully the year list will end somewhere around 650 species. The total counts for the reserve at the moment look like this:

Class	Total	2014
Vertebrate - Birds	141	81
Vertebrate - Other	23	4
Invertebrate - Lepidoptera	167	135
Invertebrate - Diptera	70	57
Invertebrate - Coleoptera	64	19
Invertebrate - Hemiptera	43	8
Invertebrate - Other	148	34
Plants - Vascular	273	153
Plants - Bryophytes	84	80
Fungi	72	65
Lichens	4	3
	1089	639

The breakdown of this year's records has been quite similar to the overall breakdown, albeit inverts are naturally under-represented. At the start of the year fungi and non-vascular plants would have been barely showing at all..

There are some targets I'd like to reach overall which I will pay some attention to from now on. The year's target is so far behind it's not really interesting any more!

I'd like to get the bird list to 150, but there's not much I can actively do about that other than show up regularly. It could take ten years!

Lepidoptera I'd like to see at 200, and I'm sure that's doable in a reasonably short time span. Many micro moths have been ignored completely and there's plenty more macros to see too.

Fungi and bryophytes both I'd like to see at over 100 and those are moving along nicely. Finding new bryophytes won't be the most straightforward, but the total's close already. Fungi is just a question of sticking at it for a bit and we're right in prime time now with most new additions coming in this category.

I'd also like to see Hoverflies go over 50 (from 45), add a few flies and beetles, make a start on lichens and spiders

I guess I should think about where I'd like the total to be next year. I think I'll set the bar somewhere around 100 new species in 2015. That should be alright I think