Stuart Warrington is an ecologist and expert on water bugs and water beetles, for which he is county recorder. He has contributed many records on these groups for Hertfordshire as well as many other species groups of flora and fauna. His skill in finding and identifying water insects and land as well as aquatic beetles has greatly increased knowledge concerning the species found in the county. However, his award also recognises a wide-ranging contribution to the management of habitats and nature reserves.
Until recent retirement, Stuart was East of England Nature Conservation and Wildlife Advisor to the National Trust, having previously lectured in ecology at the University of Hertfordshire. He has published papers in the academic literature and in the Hertfordshire Naturalist. In the latter they range from one on the rare Rusty (Red) Click beetle Elater ferrugineus that he pheromone-lured his Welwyn Garden City garden to the condition of SSSIs in Hertfordshire. In 2021 he jointly authored an article on The Beetles of Sherrardspark Wood.
Stuart is an appropriate winner of the first-ever Trevor James Award, which has been re-named this year to commemorate another outstanding Hertfordshire naturalist and expert on Coleoptera (as well as Flora) who died in 2020. Stuart’s broad natural history interests as well as his focus on beetles brought him into close contact with Trevor and he contributes substantial number of records to the latter's 2018 Beetles of Hertfordshire.
Accepting his award online at the HNHS annual meeting on November 27 he said he had been fortunate to enjoy a deep curiosity in the natural world throughout his life: “There’s always so much to learn and so much more to learn,” he said.