The world we live in has become full of highly charged opinions competing for your attention but what should you believe? What is the truth…
Are duplicates a problem? This is one of the commonest falacies that I come across very regularly and it’s actually not a problem at all…
In the last year the impact on personal health and the environment of continued large-scale meat eating has been in the news headlines quite a…
My first batches of sloe gin are ready to drink and are tasting pretty good so I think I can rough out my recipe now.…
This winter I have been making liqueurs with hedgerow fruits – things like sloe & damson gins and vodkas but also variations with hawthorne berries,…
Have just come back from a lovely, relaxing trip to my parent’s for Christmas … lots of chatting, eating and (a little) drinking, all in…
It’s not often that you get this close to the very rare and tiny Microsoma exiguum (3mm), Cinochira atra (2mm) & Catharosia pygmaea (4-5mm). I…
Here are a few Pelecotheca (Cryptocladocera) sp. stacks. The technique involves taking about 30 photos, each at a different focal point in the specimen and…
Last Friday I had the pleasure of helping out at the Natural History Museum’s yearly “Science Uncovered” event. For one evening the museum opens its…
I have finally finished going through the tachinids that I caught last year and putting names to them. It wasn’t as hard as it might…
This weekend has been a real treat for me and I have learned so much. All due to the visit of Monty Wood, who took…
Today I received a very exciting parcel of peruvian tachinids from John Smit and Menno Reemer. The samples were taken during the last half of…
Today Matt & I ran a tachinid identification workshop at the BENHS collection at Dinton Pastures. This was the 4th or 5th year that we…
After 3 days of frantic reorganization in the Palearctic collection I have finally accessioned most of the tachinids I caught or was given last year…
It has been very ‘birdy’ in the last few days. Yesterday I went to a local lake with my girlfriend and we saw a really…
At long last I am very pleased to say that the OPAL cabinet project is finished! Yesterday I collected the final batch of drawers from…
Whilst at the NHM last week Max Barclay kindly sorted me out with some new unit trays for the OPAL-funded cabinets. I have spent a…
Southern England had another blanket of snow last night – about 40cm in my area, which is the most snow I have seen since I…
Last night we had one of the heaviest snow storms in many years and I woke to about 15-20cm of snow blanketting everything. Several friends…