Well, I've had a cracking week down in Cornwall with Danny. The ladies probably had enough of our antics after the first morning, truth be told - but Dan's 2 year old daughter stuck with it better than hoped for, the wee trooper. She has quite a few unusual species on her list, we may see her enter the rankings on this site as soon as she learns how to read and write!!!

I'm still going through the list of additions. Somewhere in the region of 45 species, I think. Sami and I are off to New Zealand on 1st May and will be homeless when we come back (the tenancy agreement on our rented flat expires whilst we're away and we aren't renewing) so all of our stuff is going into storage until we figure out a new place for ourselves. Hence I've left the bulk of my ID books in Cornwall with Dan, which means I'm without keys so unlikely to get very far adding to the tally now I'm back in Epsom.

Highlights have been many, but probably the oddest was finding a 6ft log washed up on the beach full of shipworm holes. We went home, grabbed an axe, an axehead, 4 homemade wooden wedges, a 6ft metal bar, a mallet and a hefty dose of lunacy. Within a short while we'd successfully split the log in half and started exploring the shipworm galleries for signs of life. Unfortunately we were too late, all that remained were the calcified walls of the tubes and empty shells at the bottom of them. Poop! But the record is a good one, Psiloteredo megotara, identified by the shape of the shell halves. Bizarre lifestyles, have a Google and see!

I shall add photos once I've taken them off the memory card. Hopefully I can produce them here as an album.