News Pages

May 2008: BBC Wales Filming with Iolo Williams

Last week, Iolo and the BBC Wales team came to St Davids to film for their new series 'Not In My Nature'. It follows a group of 6 members of the public as they experience a variety of Welsh wildlife challenges.

The team spent a superb, sunny day filming with me, hunting for the wonderful insect life that lives in this part of the world.

Not In My Nature will be shown on BBC 1 Wales at 8:30pm from Monday 23rd June 2008 read more...

April 2008: Egyptian Grasshopper found in local garden centre

I received a call from Bernie who owns St Davids Garden & Nursery saying that he had found a very large grasshopper or locust in his greenhouse. I quickly pulled together a net, collecting tub, camera, tripod and book on Orthoptera and jumped in my car! It really did feel as if I was an insect detective! The creature in question was rather cold, so stayed obligingly still to be photographed and subsequently captured. It was later identified with the help of Darren Mann as being an Egyptian Grasshopper, Anacridium aegyptum. It is a very easy species to recognise, as it is about 4cm long with stripey eyes read more...

March 2008: PhD funding guaranteed

The University of Oxford have awarded me the Professor Sir Richard Southwood Scholarship in Insect Ecology, starting October 2008 to study the impact of anthelmintic treatments on Dung Beetles read more...

March 2008: New Welsh BAP species to Pembrokeshire

I have unearthed a specimen of the species Carabus monilis from the depths of my freezer!