I've been interested in birds - especially migratory waterbirds - my whole life, especially in the UK where I am based (in fact my day job is policy work for the RSPB and BirdLife International to conserve migratory birds globally). Likewise I have always been interested in British flora encountered while on walks (though have never got around to getting to grips with grasses and sedges!).

An addicted snorkeler, I love trying to get to know the Indo-Pacific, Mediterranean, and Atlantic coastal marine ecosystems, especially the fish. Terrified of the impact of global warming on these ecosystems, and conflicted about the carbon budget needed to reach them (though lucky that my work often takes me close to good snorkelling), I find iNaturalist a boon to my conscience as I feel by entering my records (including gradually, my backlog) I am giving something back to this fabulous biodiversity. But, oh the urgency, before it is too late!

Since the pandemic, have also discovered the wonders of river snorkelling, especially in East Anglia, where I live. All my swims are recorded on my Twitter/X account @numenini under #MySwim and gradually I hope to enter the backlog of records of all river taxa onto iNaturalist. Likewise local fungi discovered on walks (although I am not tempted to get to the level of identification where microscopy etc is required!).

I am deeply grateful to the iNaturalist community for all the help on identification - there are only so many identification guide books that can fit on the shelves, and the time saved by the iNaturalist AI is time that can be spent on further exploration and entering backlogs of records (regret so much that I only really started to get going with iNaturalist in late 2022 - would have saved such a lot of time if I'd engaged earlier!)