Mark Telfer
My total:
8681
Year I started recording:
1983
Last updated on:
16th February, 2020
About me:
As a schoolboy birder and twitcher, I wanted to get into other taxonomic groups and resolved an ambition to see 4,000 species of animals, plants and fungi in Britain and Ireland. It was an ambition I thought would take a lifetime to achieve. But I'm now in my late-40s and my pan-species list is over 8,000 and always rising. I am still a birder and very occasional twitcher, and there have been years in the past where I'd have called myself a botanist, but invertebrates are my main interest now, especially beetles, though I'm also really keen on bugs, Orthoptera, woodlice, non-marine molluscs and dragonflies.
Age:
My bogey species:
Yellow-breasted Bunting. The carabids Blemus discus and Elaphrus uliginosus. Scarlet Darter and Green Darner. These are all rare things so it seems odd to call them bogeys but in the groups I've really made an effort with, they are the commonest gaps on my list.
My most wanted:
Pepper-pot Earthstar. Mouse-eared Bat. The carabid Callistus lunatus. Goblin Gold. Ghost Orchid of course. Any marine turtle. The shrimp Niphargus glennei and the Tadpole Shrimp Triops cancriformis.
My grippers:
Vagrant Great Bustards. Vagrant Darter Sympetrum vulgatum. Greenhouse Camel-cricket Tachycines asynamorus. The carabid Bracteon argenteolum.
Latest addition:
Bledius tricornis (rove-beetle), Ephydra macellaria, Philotelma rossii, Haloscatella dichaeta (shoreflies), Barling Marshes, 4.ii.2020. Trichocera annulata (winter gnat), back garden, 25.i.2020. Troglomyces ?rossii? (Laboulbeniales fungus on Ophyiulus germanicus millipedes NEW TO BRITAIN & IRELAND), Ventnor Botanic Gardens, 12.ii.2019 & Belfast, 17.ix.2019. Acaeroplastes ?melanurus? (woodlouse NEW TO BRITAIN), Tresco, 21.x.2019. Laccaria laccata (The Deceiver), Gymnopus confluens (Clustered Toughshank), Glenmore Wood, Co. Tyrone, 19.ix.2019. Brachygluta simplicior (pselaphine beetle, 3rd British record), Thanatus striatus (spider), Walberswick, 17.i.2020. Triaeris stenaspis (spider; 2nd British record), Coleosoma floridanum, Achaearanea tepidariorum (spiders), Whipsnade Zoo Butterfly House, 13.i.2020. Barbatula barbatula (Stone Loach), Macronychus quadrituberculatus (riffle beetle), Brychius elevatus (diving beetle), Pomatinus substriatus (long-toed water beetle), Aphelocheirus aestivalis (River Bug), River Teme at Bransford Bridge, 20.viii.2019. [List total last updated 15.ii.2020]
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