The Day Gilbert's Ghost Lost his Glove

Somehow I seem to have gained a (wholly and entirely undeserved) reputation of starting things and never completing them (I repeat, wholly and entirely undeserved...) I have no clue how this began, but it's borderline slanderous as far as I'm concerned. Just look at my Challenge 2019 which started off with high hopes and expectations - and then lost all momentum partway through February after a mere 16 posts, never to be updated ever again...a'hem.

But this year will be different (hmmm, that sounds all too familiar) and for two very good reasons. 

Firstly, I typically spend most of my natural history time looking at absolutely everything, well maybe not bryophytes so much, but nearly everything. The result being that precious little actually sticks. I simply encounter far too wide a range of species throughout the course of a year to gain familiarity with many of them, there are always so many things to look at and I simply can't remember them all. Of course, some of it sticks - I'm a pretty decent naturalist on the whole - but partway through last year I decided I needed to change tactics and narrow down my focus. Beetles and flies, concentrate on those and learn them. It appeals, so that's my plan - hence this whole 2020 Vision malarkey.

The second reason I'm going to continue studying and learning my beetles and flies throughout the entire year is this! Despite his not blogging a single word for almost 21 months, tonight Gilbert's Ghost has blogged twice within the space of an hour regards a wee challenge we agreed upon late last night. 

The Ghost contacted me at twenty to one this morning (we're both a couple of night owls) asking, "Fancy a challenge? Who gets the highest combined total of flies & beetles this year. We both have advantages & disadvantages, might be quite a larf"

Only one response to that - "You're on. I get a weekend away with The Telf though"

And so began a bit of late night banter whereupon we failed to come up with any rules other than it's ok to get help and spend time with other naturalists, but not ok to collect shedloads of specimens and send them off to an expert to ID for us, and that it's ok to count all life stages. (Hang on, I've just thought of something - I bet he intends to count the empty mines too! That's a dirty trick, but I bet he bloody well does. Anything to up his chances, the sneaky sassanach ex-reverend!) 

The Ghost doesn't know this yet, and it has occurred completely independently of our little challenge, but two amateur dipterists have been quietly chatting away with each other regards coming up to Skye to spend time in the field with me for few days this summer. I only learned of this today, but it seems that already the stars are aligning in my favour. 

For the record, my tally so far stands at four beetle species and one fly species, plus a Mycetophila gnat that I can only do to genus for now, hence currently uncountable towards The Challenge. Peter Chandler can put that right for me though.... 

It would appear that The Ghost has taken a fat leaf out of Graeme Lyons' book and thrown down his gauntlet into the face of fearsome adversary (though in this instance it's just me) and it'll take a whelpling (guess that'll be me again) to bring him down. In his own words, Game On! 

I ought to quickly clarify that all of this is just for 'shits n giggles'. What we hope to achieve from it is that this bit of friendly rivalry will encourage both of us to spend more time getting to grips with a couple of orders we aren't especially proficient with and hence improve our overall PSL skills. Which is what my whole 2020 Vision Plan entailed anyway - so it's win win situation. Unless your name is Gilbert, coz he's definitely gonna lose this one.