Comments | drplokta: A Project For 2007

drplokta

A Project For 2007

Jan 05, 2007 14:08

This year, I thought I'd see how many different species I could spot on the Rotherhithe peninsula, which has pretty diverse habitats for 2/3 of a square mile of Inner London.

A few ground-rules:

The area is bounded by and includes the River Thames, Plough Way, Lower Road and King's Stairs Gardens. The far shore of the Thames does not count. See ( Read more... )

Comments 13

Good Luck whotheheckami January 5 2007, 14:32:17 UTC

Will be counting the various species of humanity? Geek, Goth, Fanboy etc? ;@)

Re: Good Luck drplokta January 5 2007, 14:37:55 UTC

Those are all domesticated, and hence excluded by rule 3.

Re: Good Luck frostfox January 5 2007, 20:36:03 UTC

Are you sure they are all domesticated?
Wot about chavs?
And I know several students who aren't housebroken.

FF - who has a *proper* owl (it goes 'twowit-twoo' as proper owls should) living in the trees at the end of the road.

Re: Good Luck hjsb January 8 2007, 12:27:14 UTC

Sounds like you've got two owls...

mkillingworth January 5 2007, 14:34:52 UTC

Are you counting insects?

drplokta January 5 2007, 14:37:33 UTC

See rule 2. Butterflies are the only insects to be counted.

bellinghman January 5 2007, 15:22:09 UTC

Unless it's a water-breathing butterfly?

(English so needs better parsing rules.)

drplokta January 5 2007, 15:27:38 UTC

If I should chance to see a butterfly breathing water, I'll probably have things to do other than agonising over whether or not it should count.

Thread 5

bellinghman January 5 2007, 15:20:50 UTC

Rule 8: hmmm, controversial!

(Ring species - the classic creationist bugbear.)

bohemiancoast January 6 2007, 12:04:23 UTC

Thinking about this, I think 65 is if anything an underestimate.

drplokta January 6 2007, 17:39:34 UTC

Yes, I think so. According to this page, a birder who made six visits in the first five months of last year saw 55 species, and he missed a few I know to be in the area such as kingfisher and green woodpecker. There are supposed to be 20 butterfly species in the Ecology Park. Add half a dozen mammals (grey squirrel, fox, rabbit, mouse, water vole, rat) and the odd reptile or amphibian (turtles, allegedly a slow worm colony, conceivably a lizard, frog or toad) and you're over 80.

stillcarl January 14 2007, 03:50:48 UTC

I couldn't do the poll because there was no 42!

Though that's quite close to the mean, so maybe I could trend it down a bit...

(Though as I accidentally voted for no number, I won't bother trying...)