RAUK - Archived Forum - Posts by -LAF:

I heard a several years back whilst in the YHC (from a guy called Colin Fitzsimmons - BHS education officer - anyone remember ?) that Adders had been recorded in every month on Studland heath when the weather was suitable. In Lincolnshire they were out in force on the 24th of March and were probably out before (I just wasn't there). A few pics taken then can be had at: http://gallery.pethobbyist.com/index.pl?user=29387&cat=500&thumb=1 . I noticed that all the Adders I saw (12 - one day/one site) were looking in really good condition. Don't know if we get 'good years' and 'bad uns' as such but I've never seen them come out of hibernation with this much weight on before.

Cheers, Lee.

The latest edition of the UKWild e-zine has an article on uk reptiles in it.... It can be found at www.onewildworld.co.uk

Cheers, Lee.

Thanks for all your help, I will continue digging and post anything I uncover on these forums. Another introductee I heard of was Natrix tesselata that apparently bred on Spalding-upon-Holme moor (This was in a book on introduced vertibrates of the British Isles which I can no longer find - or remember the title of - GRrrr!). A lot of that area has gone to peat extraction now anyway so even it it did establish it's probably now lost. As regards the red-eared slider, I know there's no record of them breeding but in many areas they are probably the most frequently seen reptile (Here in Notts anyway), which is sad but a good enough excuse to include them. Again, many thanks for all your comments, much appreciated.

Cheers, Lee.

Wow, never found any of these on the Island. Lots of Adders but never Natrix. I'd heard they occured on one of the RSPB sites there but the only place I ever saw one in N. Wales was on the Llyn peninsula. Arnold's Atlas shows a few sites on Anglesey but, like I said, they always provided me a no-show. Do you know what their status is like on the island? Are they doing as well as the Adders are there?

Cheers, Lee.

Ooops!, In hindsight I seem to remember something about a Newbury that had a by-pass built neer it on the news now. My brain obviously doesn't function too well at 9am.
Grass snake in Bangor wouldn't totally surprise me. Slow worm and common lizard both do well there and local kids all seem to have seen grass snake in the same places behind Bangor mountain (one description was perfect - "they're green and their s**t stinks to **** yeah"). After checking them out they did look likely spots.  The one I saw was crossing a road nr Nefyn (was in a car full of shapees who wouldn't have appreciated stopping to take a closer look - and we were after a pub...) The woods around Llanderfel (nr Wrecsam) are apparently a good place too. Anyway, I'm gonna go off and brush up on my geography!

Cheers, Lee.

Well Alan, as David has said, there are three Anolis species on St Lucia, and I beleive you have all three here! I must stress that this is going by markings and appearance alone, I don't have the taxonomic data for your photos - but I am very confident...

Picture 1: Anolis extremus (an introduced species from Barbados) Saw loads of the on Barbodos (where they are endemic). Very distinctive looking.

Picture 2: Anolis luciae - (The native one)

Picture 3: Anolis wattsi - (an introduced species from Antigua) Really distinctive dorsal markings.

Picture 4: Don't do geckos - sorry!

Hope this helps, Lee.

Actually Alan, I seem to remember Barbados being relatively devoid of reptile life except for A. extremus, which was ubiquitous across the island. I found one very small gecko (probably a juvenile Hemidactylus) in the hotel and except for the Anolis that was it. Mongeese (or is that mongooses?) seem to have wiped out any snakes on the island. Lots of rather fab land crabs though. It's a tiny island with very little biodiversity and certainly wasn't my ideal choice of a holiday spot but I was young at the time. Wildlife aside though, it was a very nice place.

Cheers, Lee.

Hi Tony, thank you for the offer! If that's possible it would be great. I will be shooting over June and July. Any time during these months would be fantasic - and I can be very flexible as to specific dates. I've got a reference from my course supervisor (Brian Case - heard of him?) underway. Site confidentiality is a given.

Let me know if this would be convenient.

Many thanks, Lee.

Hi Matt, It's a really unusual looking animal this one! I know that slow-worms can live for over 50 years in captivity but what they look like at that age I don't know. I'm not sure if there are any photographs of really old Anguis in existence but they'd be an interesting comparison. This evening I will post a head scalation map for A. fragilis (British form - female). If you have a higher resolution photograph that you can make out the head scalation from then this may be useful for comparison. Do you know the sex of this animal? The neck and dorsolateral lines would suggest female but there is no obvious dorsal stripe. As this animal seems to have shed its tail at some point sexing by tail proportion is out...  In this case 50cm is a monsterously big Anguis as they're usually half tail or more! Do you know the snout-vent length?

Finally, it seems incredible that a slow worm would put up anysort of fight against a cat. Cats regularly kill adders and it seems surprising that a slow worm (about the most benign herp imaginable) would get a chance to bite back, let alone try.

Anyway, great pic of an amazing animal! Cheers, Lee.

In 2001 I observed Adders copulating in mid August on a Fen Nr Pentraeth (sic?), Anglsey. The male followed the femal, did the tail tickling thing, and got down to business sucessfully. After a few mins the female moved away a few feet, the male followed and repeated the process again. No other males seemed to be present. I went back to to find my girlfriend (who had my camera) and got back around half an hour later. The female was still under the same gorse bush where I'd last seen her but the male was about 5m away crossing a clear area. I remember this one well as it's the only time I've managed to observe copulation in Adders, and it struck me as strange to be so late in the year. Don't know if they can do the sperm retention thing or if it was just bad judgemnet on their behalves.

Cheers, Lee.

The centipedes are almost certainly members of the Scolopendrid family. While bites are not life threatening they are truly, horrificly, painful. Avoid being bitten at all costs. As for the scorpions, I'm not sure but I would presume that they would be of the Euscorpious genus (E. carpathicas occurs on the mainland) and probably* not dangerous.

*Don't take my word for it, check!!!

Cheers, Lee.

Yeah, it's the only hibernaculum I know in that area. These were out on the heath behind the lake though, never found many around the hibernaculum after May. So what do you reckon it could be? A strange manifestation of IBD (well, it is Anglsey... lol), unique local population factors (sperm retention?), something in the water, boredom...? I haven't got a clue, that's for sure. 

Cheers, Lee.

It's a good question, almost all the reserves that have decent Adder populations in my native Lincolnshire have warning signs but they are all members only trust reserves. In N. Wales the nature reserve leaflets also state when Adders are likely. As they are not collected I wouldn't think it would be overly bad for the snakes. I can't see anyone intentionally going there just to kill them, and people who might otherwise do so on finding them may be discouraged from doing so by the prospect of a four figure fine, criminal record and (theoretically but woefully unenforced) some time. Would be interesting to hear what other people thought.

Cheers, Lee.

I was flitting between Surrey and Devon all last week when me and the girlfriend were camping near the county borders on Exmoor. Saw a fair number of Buzzards in both counties. Aslo saw 5! Peregrines, all close to or on the coast, 4 males and 1 female. 2 were on Surrey side. Even watched a fab territorial dispute between two birds near our campsite. Other than those we didn't see any other birds of prey though (though at one point we expected a sparrowhawk was hunting nearby due to the behaviour of the woodland birds whilst walking a path among some ancient oaks) and Tawny owls did there best to keep us awake at night. As for the owls, I've posted a picture of an adult Barn Owl and a Juvenile Tawny (sorry, don't have pics of adult, you get the idea what it'll be like though)....

Barn Owl (Tyto alba)

®Lee Fairclough 2003

Tawny Owl (Strix aluco) Juvenile

®Lee Fairclough 2003

Definately some of my favourite birds (well, you can argue very strongly that birds reptiles!)

Cheers, Lee.

Aargh! Geography gone wrong again!!! (and it's half midnight as usual too...) In the bit above instead of Surrey read Somerset! Was in Surrey as well immedately prior (that's where the owls were taken). And did see Buzzards there too (but alas, not Peregrines).

Hope that clears up any confusion, Cheers, Lee.