About me

I don't for one minute believe that anyone out there is all that interested in me per-se, but if you are wondering what kind of mad fool is interested in all this stuff - read on...

My old school photos

• Denefield 6th-form 1984 - here (745Kb)
• Denefield 6th-form 1985 - here (845Kb)

Hobbies include

• Conservation volunteering: I am the volunteer reserve manager of Hartslock nature reserve
• Entomology: I am co-organiser of the UK Tachinid Recording Scheme (the parasitic flies - see http://tachinidae.org.uk) with Matt Smith. I am also intersted in Lepidoptera (butterflies & moths), other Diptera (flies) & Hymenoptera (bees, wasps & ants) - but with an emphasis on parasitoids.
• Wildlife photography: I take the occasional landscape and a few shots of my family & friends but my primary interest is close-up insect photos. For this I use an Olympus 35mm SLR with a Tamron 90mm SP macro lens. Some old examples are on my Hartslock web-site.
• Growing insectivorous plants: My favourites are the tropical butterworts and bladderworts but I hope to get a pond and wetland area set up in the garden soon so I'll be able to try the hardy types (UK CPs and Saracenias).
• Messing about on computers: I'm a computer programmer but in my spare time I tend to use my PC as a tool. Of coure I play the odd few games and use the Internet for keeping in touch with friends and for shopping etc...
• then the usual stuff - music (tastes too varied to list), dining out with friends, going to see films etc, etc... (yawn, yawn!)

I am a member of

• The Amateur Entomologists Society (AES) and the British Entomological & Natural History Society (BENHS): The two biggest societies in the UK for amateur entomologists. The former has a junior wing (The Bug Club) but the latter is more oriented towards 'serious' entomologists.
• The Dipterist's Forum: A group set up to co-ordinate Diptera surveying across the UK. Meetings and field trips take place throughout the year and advice from experts is on hand for all those difficult to identify flies!
• The Bees, Wasps & Ants Recording Scheme (BWARS): A group set up to co-ordinate Hymenoptera recording across the UK. The group meets a few times a year and publishes distribution information.
• Butterfly Conservation (BC): A UK-wide society set up to conserve UK butterflies & moths and their habitats and to promote issues relating to all Lepidoptera.
• The Wildlife Trust for Berks, Bucks & Oxon: My local Wildlife Trust, and owner of my local nature reserve (Hartslock) where I do most of my conservation volunteering and invertebrate monitoring.
• The Reading & District Natural History Society: meets in Reading town centre and has a good program of summer walks and winter talks.
• The Oxfordshire Invertebrate Group (OIG): an informal group consisting of enthusiasts in various insect groups that have got together to try and survey more of the county and improve our knowledge of oxfordshire sites. Run by John Campbell (email:it28@dial.pipex.com) at the Oxfordshire Biological Records Centre.
• The Berkshire Network for Invertebrate Conservation (BNIC): again, an informal group set up to co-oridinate site surveying but in Berkshire. This group is was set up by Martin Harvey (email:martin@kitenet.freeserve.co.uk). but is currently being handed over to Tom Harrison.