It's been a slow...worm kind of a week
The survey season's just starting, and we kicked it off in style with some lovely reptiles
Reptiles!
Reptile surveys are one of our favourite - temperatures between 9 and 18 degrees C, not raining, not too windy, they don’t start or end in the middle of the night. What’s not to love? These ‘tins’ (actually not tin at all, corrugated roofing bitumen, technically known in the trade as ‘artificial covering objects’ or ACOs) went out a week ago. And six days later, some lovely female slow worms had found them.
I’m not showing you a photo of the other one here, because she was pretty well hidden, but it is on our Instagram, if you fancy playing spot the lizard.
If you’re not an ecologist, and want to know a bit more about slow worms, and reptile surveys in general, read on. Otherwise, please enjoy the photo as a brief interlude from wondering exactly when you’re supposed to sleep between now and October.
Snake or Lizard?
Slow worms are one of the more common British reptiles, and despite looking like snakes, they’re actually lizards. Legless ones. Careless of them we know, but they lost the legs. They can do stuff that snakes can’t though, like blink, and shed their tails if they’re in danger.
You can tell the one in the picture is a female because of the darker sides and the line along the middle of her back.
I want one!
Good news! If you have a back garden, and it’s not totally isolated from all other green space, there’s a good chance you can encourage them to move in. You might even have them already. I spend a good proportion of time in the summer rescuing them from the guttering on the garage - one of the perils of living on a hillside, they fall in from next door’s front garden.
Get a compost heap, or make a pile of grass clippings. Let a corner of your garden go a bit wild. Dig a hole, fill it with brick ends/rubble and some earth, and that’s a perfect shelter for a slow worm.
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