Saturday 07-05-2022 - 14:52

If you come on any of our weekly walks (every Sunday - be there or be square) you'll have probably heard some of us talking about lists, new species and numbers. You maybe confused about what we're talking about and hopefully a little curious as well. Many people keep lists of species they see - such as moths, butterflies or birds (you know who you are) but there is a semi-underground group/ cult of naturalists who take this to the extreme - I am of course talking about Pan-species Listers. There quite a small bunch - only 278 as of writing this, a lot less than the 3 million or so birders in the UK. So what is this hobby and why on earth is it remotely interesting?

What is it?

Pan-species lising involves recording every species you see in the UK. There's a few rules to listing which helps everyone stay on the same page, but they're pretty simple and boil down to you have to see a wild exmaple of a species (or indiviually recognised hybrid) somewhere withing the boundaries of the UK. Bacteria and viruses aren't included beacuse species kind of breaks down at this level and there much more advanced to ID. But other than that the rules are pretty simple. Most listers keep spreadsheets of what they've seen, I sort mine by taxonomy to make it easy to check which species I've seen and others include photos, when and where they first saw them etc. You get a profile on the website, which you fill in with a little about yourself, what species you'd like to see and ones you've spent ages trying to find but haven't found yet (bogey species) as well as a few other sections. You can also fill in your list with all the species counts youve got which are broken down into groups (Vascular Plants, Mammals, Lepidoptera: Moths, Hymenoptera etc.) which then calculates the total number of species seen and your resulting score. There's also a great leaderboard feature where you can move up the rankings as you add species (which is incredibly satisfying) and therefore compete with friends. 

Why Pan-species List?

Pan-species listing is great fun. To those familiar with keeping lists or collections there is something quite addictive about adding new things to your collection and this is just the same. It's also a lifetime hobby: with over 70,000 species in the UK you will never be short of species to track down (the top pesron has 12,908 so far). Plus it really expands your ecological understanding and identification skills, both recognsied as incredibly important for those going into conservation and ecology in the future. By not only covering one area, like birds, you develop identfication skills in a whole range of taxa enabling you to pick up jobs easier, as you'll already be able to use most keys and infer a wide range of environmental factors from the species you spot and their respective ecology. Listing also takes you to some amazing places as it becomes harder to spot new and easy species in your local patch. You'll quickly become aware of the multitude of species that are only confined to specific counties, nature reserves or even specific trees! Its amazing what rareities you have on your doorstep when you move beyond just birds and mammals (not to say these are bad - birding is what gets most of us into wildlife watching in the first place!). 

How do I get Involved?

Getting involved is very straightforward. There's a Facebook group for Listers which provides a good start for people wanting to learn more and the people there are a good place to go with "what on earth is this?". To get yourself a profile go onto the website and click create a new account. Fill in the details and put a line in the "About Me" section about being a naturalists so they know your not spam. Then wait for the email to arrive and you can begin a lifetime of listing!

I can thoroughly reccomend Pan-species Listing as the ultimate British Wildlife hobby, so get yourself on the website and start climbing the rankings!