2020 - A Twist in the Tale

Gongylidium rufipes

2020 - well that was unexpected. The neverending Leicester lockdown would be expected to put a big dent in my biological recording. In fact, it's a little more complex than that. Garden moth trapping was a big bust - frankly, I didn't put the hours in, which is odd considering how much time I spent at home, but the County Recorder, who traps nearly every night, also reported his worse year since 2012, so something else was going on - the weather, which frankly, did a lot more damage to recording than lockdown. Although I made fewer trips and drove less miles than in previous years, I recorded 116 species of spider (all in VC55) in 2020, compared with 103 species in 2019. The explanation for that is my noisy orange friend, which I bought in January 2020 before Covid hove into view. Fewer trips, less miles, more species. Hurrah!