Endemic Exploring the Wildlife Unique to Britain

Endemism is a subject I normally associate with places like Madagascar where 90% of the fauna and flora can not be found anywhere else. However, we in Britain have endemic species to be proud of, even though some are hard to find, and often not particularly stunning to look at.

However, we have fewer endemic species than many countries due to our proximity to Europe, which was once connected to us enabling species to re-colonise following glaciations. However, we have about 50 endemic vascular plants, and similarly, there are 20 endemic insects. By comparison, we have no endemic mammals, and just one endemic bird.

This book is a celebration of the endemic species (and subspecies) that we do have, and James Harding-Morris sets off around the country in search of some of the interesting examples, proving that finding them can present a challenge. We follow his journeys looking for insects such as the Northern February Red, a stonefly restricted to rivers in Scotland. Other insects that caught his imagination were the Celtic Woodlouse, Charter’s Bristletail and the British False Flat-backed Millipede. With his background working for BSBI it is no surprise that the author has a particular focus on endemic plants, and he covers a lot of ground searching for these, including Purple Ramping-fumitory and False-toothed Lady’s Mantle.

But when it comes to birds, our only endemic species is the Scottish Crossbill – one that many of us ticked off on our early birding trips to Scotland, and one that I ought to scrub off my list because the previously accepted field characters that I relied upon have now been shown to be unreliable. No longer can you just tick a Scottish Crossbill because it has a large bill and gives “type C” calls. So, it comes as no surprise that despite searching in the forests of Strathspey, James failed to find one. Instead, he searches for Red Grouse in North Yorkshire. At the time when he started to write this book, the Red Grouse was still considered to be a race of the Willow Grouse, but late in 2024 it was declared endemic to Britain and Ireland – but, of course, it is not specifically endemic to either, just both. He also went in search of Willow Tit in South Yorkshire. Here the British race kleinschmidti was named in honour of Otto Kleinschmidt, one of two German ornithologists who examined Marsh Tit specimens in the British Museum in 1897 and spotted that some were Willow Tits!

As with several endemic forms, Willow Tits are declining, and James Harding-Morris discusses the possible causes of declines and patchy distribution for each of his subjects, which are spread across twenty chapters. As with several recent books where authors go in search of rare plants, butterflies or dragonflies, it makes for an interesting read where you can feel as though you are part of the search party seeking to find the chosen species.