Tim Kaye, of the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust, writes about a new challenge

Keep learning – the 40 species challenge

Improving self-esteem and social interaction are just two of the benefits from learning something every day. The Wiltshire and Swindon Biological Records Centre staff probably didn’t have this in mind when they devised the 40 species challenge but it is certainly is an added bonus. In order to celebrate 40 years of biological recording and collection, participants have to go and record 40 types of organism that are new to them in 2015. I decided to take up this challenge in April and so far I have had considerable input from one or two people on the Wellbeing Programme groups I lead for Wiltshire Wildlife Trust.

One volunteer in particular is adept at finding things from under stumps and in the soil. He will bring them to me to identify with unbridled enthusiasm. Whilst at Ravensroost Wood, just west of Swindon he found a black beetle with red spots which turned out to be the Shining Fungus Beetle (Scaphidium quadrimaculatum). It feeds on the fungi on decaying branches and is not common at all. He also brought back a tiny snail which turned out to be the Brown Hive Snail (Euconulus fulvus) which only grows to a maximum of 3.5mm in width!

Buoyed by this success I was determined to rack up a few more to the list and having seen a lot of plants, moths and birds my challenge was pushing me into ever more esoteric areas. I identified an Elf’s ear lichen (Normandinia pulchella) growing on the side of a tree and a Knobbed Shieldbug (Podops inuncta) in my garden. Perhaps the most surprising was the piece of bird poo I was looking at on a fence post. Given that it moved I was sure that it wasn’t the foresaid item and on closer inspection I identified it as a Cramp Ball Fungus beetle (Platyrhinus resinosus). Its larvae feed on the Cramp ball fungus as do reportedly 100 other species!

Taking on the challenge is easy and can be accessed here on WSBRC’s website: http://bit.ly/1CwmLv1

I am currently up to 10 species and have been encouraging others to take on this challenge as well. There was great feedback recently regarding a lichen recording session we undertook with our Wellbeing Programme group. This isn’t surprising really. Taking a closer look at things can give us a perspective on the world that we didn’t have before as well as providing data that is exceptionally important to decision makers across the country.