Welcome

Welcome to my blog

This is where I post various musings about wildlife and ecology, observations of interesting species (often invertebrates)
and bits of research that grab my attention. As well as blogging, I undertake professional ecological & wildlife surveys
covering invertebrates, plants, birds, reptiles, amphibians and some mammals, plus habitat assessment and management
advice
. I don't work on planning applications/for developers. The pages on the right will tell you more about my work,
main interests and key projects, and you can follow my academic work here.

Monday 5 December 2011

Circus of the Spineless #68 - gifts galore!

It's December, so it's tempting to come up with a festive theme for this edition of Circus of the Spineless. However, I'm going for a 'birthday' theme instead because it's my blog's 'official' 1st birthday - 'official' (like the Queen's) because it's about a year since it really got going though I started it a bit before that. And, my 20,000th pageview just appeared, so thanks to whoever that was! Anyhow, I digress - please do click to take a giftbox, a slice of virtual cake and/or a glass of whatever suits you...

First up, Susannah of Wanderin' Weeta fame has provided some gift-wrapped goodies found tucked away in a vacant lot ('brownfield site' in UK-speak!) which goes to show it's always worth a look. To celebrate, why not start with a slice of tasty cake...


Next, a pair of splendid parcels arrived from John at 'Carp Without Cars' - the first arrived as 'snail mail' but not really (you'll see what I mean, just drink from the glass of finest red) and the second comes in a smaller package that rarely displays its contents quite as clearly as this...


My birthday cup already runneth over, but there's more to come... Here, Daniel at 'Notes from Dreamworlds' takes a close, close look at some freshwater critters courtesy of some high-quality optics (feel free to contrast this with the microscopy efforts on my blog!) and wraps the whole thing up as an 8-minute video - a veritable treasure-chest of precious things.


And lastly, I shall give myself a small gift of shameless self-promotion... Here, I look at the shiny jewelled contents of a box that really did turn up in the mail, so why not sit back with an ice-cold beer - mmm.... foamy...


So, that's all from my birthday-themed CoS #68 - thanks for coming along to the party; the more the merrier and there's no-one on the door to check for invitations. Next month, prepare yourself for some myrmecology as CoS scuttles off to Wild About Ants. Byeeee.

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