Return of The King

I totally agree, it's one heck of a pretentious post title; but it genuinely was said of me when I returned to Skye after an absence of maybe 18 months (bless you Neil). It's the title of a LOTR book, just in case you weren't sure. I've yet to suffer delusions of grandeur to quite that extent. 

In four hour's time the bells will ring us into 2025. So grab yourself a strong drink, settle into your comfiest chair and join me as I embark upon another year of madness and mayhem in the world of pan-species listing. 

Which seems like an opportune moment to introduce you to my own personal definition of PSL...

Gibster's Golden Rule: Pan-species listing is all about getting to grips with the sheer wonder and diversity of nature at a depth, speed and pace that suits you. And that's it. It truly is as uncomplicated as that. You may feel the need to ask for help, or you may feel the need to proffer help, and that's fine.

What it most definitely is not about is membership demographics, one-upmanship, numbers, over-inflated egos, marketing, or the slow rise of an incipient dictatorship. Which, tragically, is the way the online community is currently heading. As such I have quit the community and reverted to my usual Lone Wolf approach; doing things pretty much my own way, in my own time, as and when I feel so inclined. Which has gotten me back into pressure-free blogging. Lucky, lucky you...  

I say that, but Ghostie (my eternal partner in crime) and Mark 'The Godfather' Telfer, will undoubtedly feature strongly in this blog. But I'm done with the community, it's been ruined. Hopefully there will be a revolution and it will manage to rebuild itself, but the old timers appear reticent to create waves and the acolytes younger generation are seemingly already under the sway of their glorious leader.

Dawn at Duncansby Head, the first morning of my JOGLE 2024 Walk. 

In the 'missing years' of this blog, I left my beloved Uig, took a job elsewhere on Skye and met an incredibly wonderful Polish lass. We hit it off, travelled around Scotland for a bit before ending up in Cornwall. But ultimately we split up, though we are still the best of friends. I returned to Skye, hotel work once again, before figuring I needed to pick at a certain old scab. I'd walked Land's End to John o' Groats way back in 2012, so this time I walked John o' Groats to Land's End, on foot and entirely unsupported throughout. I lost some toe nails and a decent amount of weight, didn't get killed by a sasquatch in the woods just south of Inverness, and met some fabulous folks. It took me 58 days, which I feel is a decent enough pace, but a voice in my head is telling me that 50 days is perfectly achievable. I'm inclined to agree, one for next time... Right now I'm working in the south of Skye (though at this precise instant I'm in Ayr, my old hometown from my early teens) impatiently waiting for midnight to arrive so I can start my 2025 PSL List!

I passed 7000 species on my British PSL at the end of July 2024, number 7000 being a moth to light in an Islay woodland with The Ghost. I honestly couldn't have wished for better (well, Orca maybe...) I've spent an ungodly amount of time looking at plants for the past three years, I can now recognise the odd sedge so I'm clearly improving. Other than Diptera, I have essentially ignored inverts for the past couple of years, a failing that was highlighted during a week's stay with Mark Telfer last month. I was embarrassingly rusty with beetle and mollusc ID. And I do mean embarrassingly rusty! 

For 2025 I will continue bothering plants including, I hope, a whole suite of montane species that I've never met before. But I shall also try to regain some of my 'pan' by concentrating on the inverts a lot more than I have of late. There are quite a few 'verts' that need to be secured too. My all time biggest tart finally fell for me a couple of months back, a Mole scampered (yes scampered!) across the road in front of me somewhere in Somerset - during broad daylight too! I think it was probably forced above ground by local flooding, elsewise I'm sure I'd still be believing they were mythical faerie beasts. I do have several other long-overdue mammals awaiting discovery, mostly rodents and bats, but also a few cetaceans plus the odd wallaby, mustelid and beaver too. And it would be particularly satisfying to add a few more birds to my PSL, seeing how various species keep getting lumped of late.  

Enough waffle from me for one night (though I have plenty more in store, don't you panic). It's music time and tonight I give you Norwegian band Madrugada. Apparently the name translates in Spanish and Portuguese as the time between midnight and sunrise, though Google Translate just offers "dawn". Anyway, read into it what you like. Is this the dawn of a new blogging age for me, or are the lyrics about the loss of something close to my heart? Maybe it's a little bit of both.