An invitation to my new blog: Pan-Species Listing in Monad TQ2611 West Sussex
Where is TQ2611?
As you know I am an amateur naturalist. I am particularly interested in vascular plants, lichens, bryophytes and invertebrates; but I try, to the best of my ability, to undertake pan-species recording in a patch. My patch for lichen and birds is the county of Sussex (the vice counties of East and West Sussex for biological recording purposes in the UK). But this is far to large a patch to do pan-species listing, where you try to record every species in a patch. Therefore, I am narrowing my patch for pan-species listing to one square a kilometre (a “monad” in biological recording terminology. I only travel by public transport.
In a world of massive loss of biodiversity, it is really important to to widen the knowledge of the general public of what species exist in their local area, so that these species can be conserved; to conserve something, that thing has to have a name, and to record over time so that patterns of abundance and diversity and the effect of climate change and biodiversity loss can be seen.
I have been visiting the Devil’s Dyke fortnightly over the last four years (on the 17 and 77 buses) but I have not formally recorded what I have seen there. From now on I will formally record in iRecord the species I see.
TQ2611 encompasses a rich tapestry of habitats, including unimproved chalk downland, the dramatic chalk combe of the Devil’s Dyke, ancient woodland surrounding a wet chalk stream valley, rising in a spring, secondary woodland part of an old chalk pit, and, at the foot of the downs, low weald pasture farmland.
I hope you enjoy my new blog; I shall still be wrting posts for this blog
Sim's Nature Notes 