WORLD OF WOODLICE

Well why not? Woodlice are cool creatures, ask any young naturalist under six who enjoys these crustacial armadillos trundling over their palms. So imagine their glee when visiting a theme park dedicated to these oft' ignored and sneered at creatures. Aged five I would have had full-on fun with strap-on antennae scrabbling around in the dark trying to find the dampest corner. In fact, I think I did in the classroom cupboard whilst trying to avoid double French. For those fed up with the tiresome preoccupation with exotic zoological celebrities World of Woodlice offers a real creature-next-door experience and I for one would prefer a lifetime of Sundays here than at Disneyland.

WASP WORLD!

It's a personal fantasy to open such a theme park and staff it with entomologists who are committed to educating people about the virtues of wasps and how they are easy to live with and not worthy of the insane fear they precipitate in otherwise rational people. If Lions or Tigers were running amok through our summer pubs, cafes and public spaces I could understand the reaction but the overkill wrought on these wonderful little insects is an embarrassment. Of course I would charge £100 to get in, just to make sure that everyone gets stung on their day out!

THE RAT CONSERVATION TRUST

Absurd maybe, but why? Perhaps because of our often anthrocentric and entirely subjective choices about which animals we like and choose to preserve. Black Rats are in my opinion quite 'pretty' animals and are probably contenders for the title of Britain's rarest mammal yet we continue to persecute them. They represent no threat to us at all but it seems we can neither forgive nor forget their flea assisted plague spreading past and excite further prejudice as they are deemed to be 'non-native'. Like 48% of our terrestrial mammal fauna then, yet no one is gunning for Brown Hares, Fallow Deer and potentially . . . Harvest Mice!

THE ROYAL SOCIETY FOR THE PROTECTION
OF COCKROACHES

For me they are probably the greatest animals ever! A body plan that's lasted 300 million years, able to taste their food without eating it and avoid poisons, capable of going two months without water and six without food, laterally compressible to squeeze into tiny cracks, tolerant of extremes of hot and cold, egg cases that can be boiled and will still hatch, global domination and they are assured to 'out survive' our species. And true to form we hate their success and revile them as the uber 'pest'. For me they are life champions, I tip my hat to cockroaches, not tread on them!

RED ADMIRAL

It's nearly everyone's favourite butterfly and its fore-wing pattern is bold and characteristic, part of our natural consciousness having been tattooed into our brains from the time we first saw one of these beauties. I was keen to simply reduce the creature to a constellation of spots and a stripe to show how little we need to know to identify things but also to highlight that evolutions purpose was nor for us to do this but for the butterflies themselves. It's a pattern with a honed and perfected purpose.

For more information about British Butterflies please visit www.butterfly-conservation.org

ADDER

The diagnostic zig-zag which runs down the backs of all Adders, even the black ones, seems to be a curious mix of camouflage and aposomatic colouration. It may break up the outline of the snake as it lies in crumpled foliage, and certainly the animal's base colours are complementary with those found in its typical environment, but once seen it also sends out a clear message to some observers. That this is the venomous snake and you may be at risk. For my part it is one of Britain's most beautiful natural 'birthmarks'.

For more about British reptiles please visit www.arc-trust.org

2010 DESIGNS

SAFER IN OUTER SPACE

Perhaps no other species commands as much conservation concern as the Tiger. It is an icon of remarkable beauty and symbolises a rapidly vanishing wilderness. As such we give millions every year to effect its protection. But it's not working. The number of tigers in the wild continues to plummet and as the far eastern economies swell they continue to be worth more dead than alive. I doubt whether there is a single safe enclave on earth for the Tiger. Maybe we should spend all that vast sum of charitable cash to send the last few to the moon.

GOING CHEAP

I was standing in a supermarket queue looking at all the 'bargain signs' feeling ashamed that I was among the throng shopping for cheap food. It's what we have all grown up to expect but not paying what it really cost to produce is costing us the Great British Countryside. Our farmers are not getting the support they need to survive and prosper, and let's face it, they are the real custodians of our rural landscape. So how can we call upon them to 'support wildlife' when we do little to support them? The plain facts are that if we scrimp over the price of a pint of milk we are selling out our farmers and our wildlife heritage.

NO RODING

My friend Ian Williamson has always had a thing about Woodcock. Until recently I had mixed appreciations. I liked the sideways facing eyes, the strange call and the remarkably camouflaged plumage. But it's only in the last couple of years that the spectator sport of watching the males rode has taken a grip and now I'm an avid fan of the aerial froggy croaks and their unpredictable but so entertaining 'fly-bys'. I'm lucky that some roding Romeos do it over my house. Strangely this 'woodland wader' is also a game bird, ie the quarry of the shooters and whilst I would be equally as likely to turn a gun on my Itchy and Scratchy as I ever would a Woodcock, I do see two sides to this story. The Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust have a history of sound research and conservation when it comes to game birds and their assistance must be seen as a hugely synergistic thing. And, pragmatist that I am, I recognise that the responsible side of 'shooting' is a significant employer and of economic importance in the rural community. A community we must work constructively with at all times.

GOD SAVE THE BUMBLEBEES

Bumblebees have a happy, fluffy charm and are greatly liked by all of us. I’ve only been stung once . . . when I had my finger in a Wren's nest feeling around whilst a queen White-tail was prospecting herself – so I deserved it! Sadly six of our twenty-four species are threatened with extinction and two, the Shrill Carder and Great Yellow, are in real trouble with small and fragmented populations. These animals are not only important pollinators but also play significant roles in many natural communities. Our countryside would be a less colourful place without them as our airwaves currently are without bands such as the awesome Sex Pistols!

ELY CATHEDRAL

There were days not long ago when those in amazed awe of the grandeur of this beautiful edifice would have travelled to it across a unique fenscape which on summer days would have sewn clouds of butterflies to guild their pilgrimage. I've tried to 'stain glass' the wings of these gone and going things to mirror the simple art that helped to entrance these folk. Thus Swallowtails, Red Admirals, Marbled Whites, Large Coppers and Orange Tips spin in a colourful and veined splendour. Which will last longer, the sacred cathedral or the fragile insects sacrificed to the agricultural crucifixion of Eastern England?

SWALLOWS AND SPITFIRES

For my father the Supermarine Spitfire was a symbol of victory against the odds in the Battle of Britain in 1940. Actually he knows that the Hawker Siddeley Hurricane played a greater role in that conflict but for me this wonderful aircraft represents a near perfect amalgam of functional need and aesthetic design - it is the most beautiful thing that we have made to fly. But now we need to wage a new Battle for Britain's sub Saharan Migrants, our summer skies are increasingly denuded of these aerial superstars and in terms of a natural Spitfire superior none comes closer than the Swallow. Unless we act there will not be 'blue birds over the white cliffs of Dover'.