This section of Discover the Wild is my species hub — but it’s also something more personal.

These pages are my field diary.

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Over the years I’ve photographed and recorded thousands of species across North Wales: birds riding Atlantic gales, fungi glowing from damp woodland floors, lichens crusted into wind-blasted rock, orchids hidden in limestone grassland, moths drawn to a light in the small hours, seaweeds revealed by a retreating tide. Each photograph here represents a moment — often cold, sometimes windswept, occasionally muddy — but always full of curiosity.

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The different sections — Birds, Wildflowers, Fungi, Lichens & Bryophytes, Moths & Other Insects, and Seaweeds & Algae — are organised to help you explore, but they also mirror the way I experience the natural world. Not as separate subjects, but as one interconnected web of life.

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A coastal walk might begin with waders lifting from the estuary, lead to saltmarsh plants at your feet, reveal orange lichens splashed across old fence posts, and end with bladderwrack tangling around your boots as the tide turns. Everything overlaps. Everything belongs.

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By building these pages, I’m not just listing species — I’m documenting discovery. Some are common and familiar; others are scarce, declining, or rarely noticed. Some are tiny and easily overlooked. Some are spectacular. All are part of the story of North Wales.

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I hope these pages do three things:

• Help you learn to recognise the wildlife around you
• Encourage you to look closer — at bark, at rock, at seaweed, at the underside of a leaf
• Inspire you to step outside and begin your own record of what you find

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North Wales is astonishingly rich. Mountain-top fungi usually associated with the Scottish Highlands. Rare lichens clinging to ancient trees. Wintering birds gathering in their thousands along the coast. Seaweeds that shimmer in rockpools like miniature forests. There is wildness here — and it rewards patience.

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This hub will continue to grow, just as my own species list does. It is a living archive, shaped by tides, seasons and years in the field.

If it inspires you to notice something new on your next walk — then it has done its job.

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Welcome to the diary of a lifelong naturalist, and to the endlessly fascinating wildlife of North Wales.