Matt Campbell is, by his own admission, a man obsessed.
He is counting every species he can find on his property at Jeeralang Junction, near Morwell in Victoria's south-east.
When he started he didn't realise he was taking on an infinite task. What he thought would be a casual hobby has turned into an all-consuming pastime.
The number of species Mr Campbell has found so far on 4.5 hectare property? 1,200 and counting.
"There's a lot out there, it's a job I'll never finish … It started as a curiosity but quickly became an obsession."
Mr Campbell, a citizen scientist, only counts a species when he's been able to document it properly with a photograph and a clear sighting.
He is keeping meticulous records of his findings.
"I keep photographs and label my shots with the date and species," he said.
Mr Campbell encourages everyone to pay more attention to the wild menagerie at their back door.
"I tell people, 'Go and look in your backyard, that's where you start, in your own backyard'," he said.
'I never once dreamed I'd see one'
One special creature Mr Campbell has found on his property is the flying peacock spider.
"I'll never forget my first sighting of maratus volans, the flying peacock spider," he said.
"I was actually out trying to see if I could find one of the jumping spiders that imitates an ant, or an ant-mimic as we'd call it. Anyway, there I was, out in the bush, when I noticed some odd movement among some ants.
"Something jumped. I thought, 'Right, found one.' But as I knelt down and focused on the small spider, I was amazed. It was a peacock spider, the thing I'd seen on the internet.
"I have subsequently gone on to find four species of the genus on our own property along with several others elsewhere. And to this day, they still continue to excite me and put a smile on my face."
A bumper year for backyard finds
Mr Campbell said he was constantly surprised by his backyard discoveries.
Some animals are passing through, some are having a mini-break.
But if they are documented by Mr Campbell, they are counted.
"You get things turn up from elsewhere. Things get blown in on the wind, conditions change, climate changes," Mr Campbell said.
He said he was pleasantly shocked when a lacewing visited his property.
"We had a lacewing show up last year, it really did surprise me, we're 350 kilometres outside its known range and, interestingly, I recorded it again this year," he said.
"There's constantly things turning up. You find something and you look online and you work out it's one of the only handful on record in the state or even the country."
The holy grail would be to discover a whole new species.
"Species I've found have been known to science but no-one knew they were in my area. Having said that, some species I've found haven't been known to science all that long," he said.
To protect the bush in the future
So why is Matt Campbell counting every species on his property?
He hopes his findings will help to protect the Morwell National Park and surrounding bushland.
