I’ve always been a Windows person, right back to the early days of Windows 3.1, except for owning iPhones. It was’t so much that I…
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…




