In an attempt to keep my mileage within acceptable limits I'm constraining the bulk of my listing to Devon this year (though the other half will no doubt insist on the odd x county sortee for various rare orchids..).
To keep a bit (!) of diversity in it, I'll be trying to list a bit of everything, which could get interesting with the flora - as I haven't got a clue!
My first step is to work out what lists! The following are a bit random!
Birds for sure.
Mammals
Butterflies
Moths
Dragonflies
Other Insects
Spiders
Flora (gulp)
Fish
Funghi
Anything else (Sea and Shore - crabs/anemones etc..)
Think I might draw the line at lichens and mosses, bacterium etc!
Am I mad? Quite probably...
A slow start, and my main concentration has been on the birds (quelle surprise)!
By Sunday 3rd a rather leisurely total of 93 species of bird apeice for myself and the wife (with one difference each, she Little Grebe, me Jay).
Highlights were :-
A firecrest at broadsands that the wife found and I didn't get onto immediately, that I then spent one and a half cold hours hunting for before its angry little mug popped up in the bins.
The spotted sandpiper which was distant one day, but gave excellent views the next.
Bramblings amongst a large linnet and chaffinch flock at Powderham.
Picking out the distant avocet flock whilst twitching the cattle egret.
Cracking velvet scoter close in at Dawlish Warren (surf scoter typically distant)
Long tailed duck picked out by Mark Bailey whilst we were birding mud bank lane.
The mammal list is deeply unimpressive with two species, grey squirrel and (controversial?) homo sapiens!
Flowers - wow, I never fully appreciated how complex this would be, I expected to take things slowly on this front at this time of year, because not much is flowering and most trees don't have their leaves, but I'd understimated the difficulty of determining if something was native, do I tick naturalised stuff? How long does something have to be before its considered native? Also the complexity of things I expected to be simple was an eye opener - three species of gorse? Doh!
Anyway the flora was at a paltry 11 species with easy to identify in winter stuff and a lot of help from the missus:-
Oak (pedunculate!), Silver Birch, Rock Samphire, Sea Beet, Holly, (Common) Gorse, Ivy, Hart's tongue fern, Common Reed, Navelwort and Traveller's Joy.
Yesterday a jaunt to Yarner for a mammal tick (voles are often seen underneath the feeders in winter) fell a bit flat, first off the lane to the car park was closed, so we had to park at Trendblebere and walk down, second the feeders were all but empty and there was no sign of anything furry, just a lot of frustrated birds.
Still lesser redpoll, siskin, treecreeper, nuthatch and marsh tit all added to the avian list, whilst Sessile Oak, Honeysuckle and Alder added to the (pitiful) flora list.
Later on knot at mud bank lane, was the first one I counted as tickable (they had been present previously but a bit distant for my liking).