Hey – I'm Joss!

I've just finished the 3rd and final year of my Geography BA at Oxford University. Starting September 2024 I am going to be doing the MSc in Biodiversity and Conservation based at Queen Mary University of London.

I am a generalist obsessed with documenting nature of all sorts wherever I go. Being that I've lived all my life in the city, I have a particular interest in urban wildlife. Currently I am working towards learning to identify all the common species in the UK. Following this, I hope to get to grips with select groups of more tricky and less well-studied taxa and start repaying my manifold debts by identifying for others.

I am immensely grateful to the iNat community for all the identifications made on my observations and for inspiring my obsession with the natural world.

I have a couple cool first-time records for the UK on iNaturalist:

• this blue rock bindweed (Convolvulus sabatius) plant from St Agnes, Isles of Scilly
• this Helophorus nanus beetle I found in a marshy wetland area in central Oxford
• this record for the millipede Cylindroiulus vulnerarius, a colony of which I found under a pile of dead wood at the back of my college in Oxford
• this Pseudoschismatomma rufescens lichen I found growing on a tree in the Oxfordshire countryside

Beyond my generalist knowledge, I have particular experience and so can help with IDs for:

• UK springtails from the orders Entomobryomorpha and Poduromorpha