#SteveLibrary: The Butterfly Isles
One of my earliest memories of being immersed in nature (other than chasing lizards or frogs), is running round a field with a butterfly net trying to catch butterflies. It’s not nearly as easy as it looks, most of the…
#SciFri: Why we need to accept that extinction is forever
Recently, news broke that stunned the scientific community. Members of the Thylacine Awareness Group of Australia revealed that they had irrefutable proof of the existence of thylacines, an extinct marsupial wolf-like creature that was once native to most of Australasia….
#StevesLibrary: Spix’s Macaw
The writings are Tony Juniper are not unknown to me, I’ve read and reviews two of his books previously. What was unknown to me was the fact that he spent what seems a lifetime researching, for a book on the…
#StevesLibrary: The Brief Life of Flowers
One of the consequences of the recent lockdowns, is a growing love for flowers. The garden in the house I’m renting was a bit of a jungle, but recently my partner and I took all of our frustration out on…
#SciFri: The power of citizen science
Imagine you’re running a project to map the distribution of a species or observe a phenological event such as the spawning of frogs. How is one person (or a small team of people) going to be able to collect data…
#StevesLibrary: Shark
If I wasn’t spending my days studying amphibian and reptiles, I would have probably have chosen sharks instead. They too, like snakes and spiders, have an image problem – although once you understand them, they’re not all that scary. Sharks…
#SciFri: Herpetofauna Workers Meeting 2021
The Herpetofauna Workers Meeting (HWM) has been a staple event for herpetologists in the UK since the first event back in the 1980s. This year’s HWM (on the 6th and 7th February) was the 34th that have been held between…
#SteveReviews: A Perfect Planet
It’s that time of year again when a new Attenborough series airs on BBC One. Up and down the country, families crowd to the living room on Sunday evenings to see what wisdom and wonder can be gleaned from another…
#StevesLibrary: Spillover
Right at the beginning of the pandemic, I tried to purchase a book that was recommended to me back in 2014 whilst still an undergraduate. My friend who had read the book, was studying microbiology and knew that I was…
#SciFri: Why you should create a garden pond
Since 1950, we’ve lost a vast number of ponds from the British landscape. Not only has development been increasing since this time to house our ever growing population, farmland ponds have also disappeared. The farm landscape used to be dotted…
