At the start of each month my local biodiversity records centre chooses one species of flora or fauna to be the species of the month, in the hope that recorders will focus some of their recording time during the coming month in looking for and recording that species so as to fill in the gaps in their maps. This month the species has been the Grey squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis), a mammal so ubiquitous that you might think it would already have been recorded in every 1km square in south east Wales but no. As is reported on the SEWBReC website:

it is a species that can become overlooked due to being considered “too common to record”. It is important to record common species as well as rarities, to track population changes and other patterns over time.

Grey squirrels had already been recorded in most of the 1km squares in my area but I did manage to contribute a few additional records during the month.