Sifting through the debris

Sherlock Holmes, I ain't - more like Inspector Clouseau; a bungling, bumbling, fool - as I make my way along the highways and by-ways of life's journey. My desire to engage with the natural world is limited, only, by the inability of my brain to store the infinite amount of information that my experiences have the capability of producing.
I have spent a while researching that Nomada sp. which I photographed in our garden in May 2013. I had commented that it might be the first record for Thanet; it might just be so? I have managed to nail it down to one, of two very similar species. Nomada flava or N. panzeri - just one one Thanet record, pre-1980, of the latter!

Nomada flava/panzeri (?) - only one Thanet record ever!
So what difference does this sighting make? If I hadn't been in the garden then nothing
would have changed - so pretend I wasn't there!

No big deal, the dynamics of insect population trends being something that is little understood and has more to do with habitat, climate and lack of interest than genuine rarity! Which leads me nicely to birding. A hobby that is driven by an insatiable quest for rarity - a facet that has removed ornithology from the equation. Ornithology - the scientific study of birds. Birding = listing (at whatever level). Twitching = the extreme of the hobby. How many miles can I travel in a year to see birds that I'm unable to find/id for myself?
Don't throw your dummy out of the pram - I'm as guilty as everyone else. I contribute nothing to the bigger picture. None of my sightings are reported to the "higher echelons" for formal inclusion in any format; my sightings are a purely selfish indulgence (apart from my C-R records).

Small Red-eyed Damselflies - East Kent.  June 2012

Giant Sabre Wasp - Dumpton June 2012

I am unable to get enthused to join in with a system that is completely alien to my own outlook - rarity is a statistical definition of a something that has no concept of geographic boundaries, within a natural history context. "Throwing stones in glass houses" now there's a thought - "What goes round - will come around!"

Black Slip Wasp - Dumpton June 2012