The Feather Fanatic: The First Post

Hi, my name is Chris Griffin, I've been a wildlife enthusiast for the vast majority of my life..... since I was 6 in fact....... and now, 22 years on, I am going to share my daily experiences of nature with you all in the hope that maybe, just maybe, you'll get the inspiration and the drive to get out there and see for yourself just how amazing the natural world can be.

My main passion is bird-watching which, I guess, is most peoples introduction to wildlife - going down to the local pond and throwing bread in the water for the ducks for instance. My mum and dad have always greatly encouraged me, often dad would drive me over to the house of a good friend of mine, Alan Heath, at 4am so that he could take me off for a days birding anywhere in the country. This is something that I am eternally greatful for, not just to my parents, but to Alan, Len, Coot, Tone and John - the guys who 'took me under their wing' and taught me the vast majority of what I now know about ornithology. The time that they spent with me, the places they took me and their never-ending patience with a very lively school-boy, incesantly questioning everything is a debt that I can never repay, but hopefully they will feel proud that they are the reason I do what I do today.

I now work for the RSPB, currently down in Cornwall at Lands End, showing people the wildlife of the area like Basking Sharks, dolphins and a whole host of seabirds. If you're ever in the area, pop on in, we're there every day 10-5! In my spare time I am training to obtain a license for bird-ringing, I set up a moth trap most evenings and I spend as much time as I can out with my camera taking pictures of the wildlife that I see around on my walks.

Eyed Hawk-moth (Smerinthus ocellata)

Lime Hawk-moth (Mimas tiliae)


Elephant Hawk-moths (Deilephila elpenor)

Light Emerald (Campaea margaritata)

Mothing is a relatively new hobby for me, I keep on finding my interests widening, but I'm trying to take it easy at the moment, just try to learn one new subject each year rather than everthing at once.... after all, there's a hell of a lot to learn! Last year it was butterflies, this year moths and over the past couple of days, the trap has been out most nights. Each morning I go out to see what appears, and this morning the trap was completely choc-a-block..... It always amazes me just how many species of moths there are in the UK.... when you think that there are only 56 species of butterflies that reside in Britain.... there are over 800 species of moth! That's not even including what are known as 'micro' moths..... (these pictures are all of 'macro' moths, the ones that most people think as a moth), there are over 2000 species of 'micros' with most of them just a couple of millimeters in length. Suffice to say I'm sticking with 'macros' at the moment, that's hard enough work as it is.... This morning it took me 2 hours to identify all the moths that I'd trapped, with 52 species, including all of the ones pictured.