I have been interested in natural history since I was a young child. It wasn’t until my early teens, after reading a book on natural history that I began taking notes, and it wasn’t until I later joined the school bird club that my note taking became regular. Being in the bird club introduced me to keeping lists. I started with the all-important life list, which began from scratch and was added to rapidly, but as it slowed down I looked to my fellow birders, who kept a county list and year lists. The listing bug had bitten. My life list was for birds, but my interest was in general natural history, so the rest of the animal kingdom, and plants, and fungi, joined it.
By now I was in my late teens, doing ‘A’ levels, and some of the more serious birders in the club were twitchers, prepared to travel through the night at weekends in search of elusive rarities. I went on a few twitches, with mixed results, but a dangerous precedent had been set. If birds could be twitched, why not other natural history? Simpson’s Flora of Suffolk had just been published and presented the ideal opportunity to add to the plant list. Sifting through the pages, gleaning localities of plants not already on my life list sent me off to pastures new (literally), and the quest for new ticks continues to the present.
Is it a blessing? I’ve visited places I wouldn’t have in search of new places, and noted the surrounding flora and fauna. I’ve tried to read up and learn about the more elusive genera, to add them to the list, so I’ve broadened my knowledge. But is it a curse? This quest for new species means trying to give a name to everything, and with lesser-known groups – are my field guides detailed enough for correct identification? Is a life list really all that relevant? Perhaps not, but once the bug has bitten, it’s hard to stop. It keeps me venturing out in all weathers to all places in search of all life, so perhaps it isn’t such a bad thing after all.
‘Artemesia’
© 2004 Suffolk Naturalists' Society
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