RAUK - Archived Forum - Posts by Huddy:

Hi all,

over the weekend I wandered some heathland near me in the Mendip hills and saw several of the elusive green-coloured Common Lizards.

Of ten or so Commons I saw in about an hour, at least three of them were green and were breeding males. They really do look like little green or sand lizards as they race through the dry yellow grass, im not surprised people mistake them for greens or agilis.

Have a look at the pics,

Rob

PS i also saw a huge male black adder, stunning beast!

Hi All and Rob

My name is Paul Hudson im new to this forum but not new to Herpetology, good photos of Common Lizard , i to have seen them that colour before in Cumbria

I've just been in Cumbria for a couple of days, where I saw this letter in a local newspaper, from the owners of Brownrigg SSI in response to the news of a dog (off the lead) being bitten by an Adder at the site.   A good, clear message I thought.  http://www.newsandstar.co.uk/opinion/viewarticle.aspx?id=421 350

Peter

Hi all , just spent a couple of days in the merseyside dunes seen 40 diffrent sand lizards , sorry no pics , left camera at home .

Spent some of my time with Mike brown and he got quite a few pics

Hi James4

           If i were you i would go out and get Amphibians and Reptiles

             book by Beebee/ Griffiths/ , It is most informative

                       happy Birthday for sunday .

Nice pics, of those sandies in Dorset ,

I was sand lizard recording in Merseyside on sat 2/6/07 and i saw what i believe was an already spent female ie large adult with loose folds of skin down her flanks.

Hi James , You must look where the marram grows tall and the grains of sand roll,

Hi folks ,

           just to let you all know there is a sand lizard feature on bbc1 wales tonight at 7.30 (iolo welsh safari) the young sand lizards in the program were bred by john newton and paul hudson (me) cheers hope some of you catch it.p.s channel 972 on satelite

Hi Caleb

           Do you mean Gateshead in the North east or another Gateshead in the South? I live in Cumbria and have not seen frog spawn yet this year. plenty of Newts about though!

Hi ,

Does any one have any evidence of pheasant impacts on reptiles documented or anecdotal (photos)

Thanks

Hi Paul

        Personally I would not use bottles from a recycling plant as you could end up using bottles that have had chemicals stored in them for example (Turps) imagine the risks to both amphibians and the pond environment ! I would much rarther buy cheap lemonade or water in order to get your bottles .

Interesting observation there Dave ! I was once surveying a quarry pond in cumbria in the early 90,s and I came across a male gcn eating a fully grown but very decomposed male palmate newt ,the pond in question had a great many gcn and much smaller numbers of palmate .

What suprised me most about this observation was the fact that I had thought that newts would only take live prey  .

Hi Peter ,

               I am the forum  member that Dave mentions in that last post .I too would agree that you too have found a smooth/ palmate hybrid. I sent pics of the animal that I found off to Richard Griffiths at DICE and he too agreed it was a hybrid specimen . Richard is one of the co authors of the "New Naturalist Reptiles and Amphibians" and within the book he refers to a hybrid that he found at a pond in mid Wales ,photo included (black and white) , also John Buckley of the HCT sent me pics last month of a hybrid that he found in his garden pond .

I would not be suprised if there are a lot more of these hybids out there , perhaps folks just Don't idenify them correctly and further to this ,female smooth /palmate hybrids would be extreamly difficult if not impossible to I.D  

Hi Gemma,

               The behaviour that you have witnessed in your Common lizards is not unusal . I have seen this sort of thing happen fairly frequently in both wild and captive sand, green lizards . I too would agree that this sort of posturing would indicate a nervous responce from the animal .

Hi ,

   I could be wrong on this one  but I reckon it,s a Podarcis taurica I,m fairly sure that Podarcis sicula does not occur in Croatia?

Hi Will,

  I reckon thousands of Amphibians die every year in gully pots, I too have found both GCN and B.Bufo in the same situation ,I have reported my findings to local N.E team and they have in turn passed the book on to  my local council who, as you might imagine do absolutely nothing in response !!! .

I was working this year ,on a site in Cumbria that has a GCN population ,and the site owners had placed strong mesh covers over their gully pots, (Perforated with small holes 2mm wide to allow water to pass through , but small enough not to allow Amphibians to fall in .

 Cheers Paul

No signs of common frog breeding up in north Cumbria yet . In the past i've seen amplexed pairs up to a month before the first spawn.

Paul Hudson