RAUK - Archived Forum - 1st Grassie of 2007

Hi all,

Yesterday, north EF, 12 O clock, barely 12 -13 deg in full sun, not a breath of wind, green woodpecker chastising me for half an hour while I stood and watched my first grassie of 2007.

But anyone thinking Nn fresh from Hibo are slow, forget it. I tried to swing my camera bag around my shoulder as slow as a snail and she was off....... for your info Jon, I'd say she was about 3 foot but thick set. Liked your pics of the GCN by the way.

Cheers

R

Saw my first Grass Snake of the year today at my local site.  Just one animal - and that was just a long grey tail rapidly disappearing under a bush, they move much faster than Adders.  I arrived at the site at 14:00 (having been looking for Adders elsewhere, more about that on another thread..) so possibly there had been more out earlier in the day.  It was warm - pushing 16C, with a stong breeze and, according to the local weather station, only 32% RH.  As last year, and the year before, the appearance of these snakes corresponded to the first good day of the spring for butterflies - with my first sightings of Brimstone, Comma and Peacock butterflies for the year.  Another indication was that it was too warm to wear a fleece!

Happy hunting, Peter

Peter 

Hmmm... scope for a paper in a learned journal on the correlation between the vestments needed by an observer to keep him warm and the observed incidence of reptiles.  Conclusions -

1.  Hot countries (i.e. string vest and corked hat territories) have richer observed herpetofauna.

2.  In Studland being a naturist offers the best chance of seeing Sand Lizards?

Peter

2.  In Studland being a naturist offers the best chance of seeing Sand Lizards?

Peter

[/QUOTE]

I would add that at Studland you just don't now what you'll find in the heather, dressed or undressed - unless things have changed!

Suz,

it's not called 'studland' without reason lol.

I couldn't believe the first time I ever went there not really knowing about all that. I thought I had got off at the wrong planet when I'd set my tripod up to get a few shots of sand lizards and lo and behold two blokes walked passed in the you-know-what!

The Aussies are not the only ones to have Red-backs. ha

R

Look out for double mating in Grassies this year - spring and autumn

Regards

JC

Tony,

hahahahahaha, good one ,but aww yuk!

When I was there, I think it may have been too hot for Adders, it was utterly scorching by 11 O clock. Any way, by then, i sort of got the drift as to where I'd placed myself so made an exit sharpish lol.

Jon,

I'm out today scouring for mating couples....... no grass snakes of course. I must say the wind at 3mph... great, it looks promising. 6 footers here I come!

R

I will be out at my local farm later this morning - you aint gotta chance mate with these water cress grassies........

Jon

Hurray I found my first grassie of the year in a completely new place...

I also have the wounds to prove it - I had to dive into a bramble thicket. I am surveying my local farm and last year I found the grassies in their summer feeding grounds - so following a hunch I have started transects along suitable wintering sites - hedgerows, banks and small woodland areas

I was walking back from my last transect and I heard a rustle in the small woodland I was passing - sure enough a lovely male grass snake

While sorting out my camera I heard another rustle - a second grassie in the same place.....in I go again to catch the second

I think that this animal is a female - they were not big enough for the comp Rob - and I also left my measuring stick behind

But I am sure that this site is the overwintering site for these two animals......

More to come soon (pics etc)

Jon

Hi all,

Has anyone else noticed the extraordinary high water table levels this spring?

From my own point of view, this seems to have flooded many of the rabbit warrens that the Grass Snakes use to hibernate. Do you think that this may have caused moratlity during hibernation as my numbers of sightings so far are definitely down this year???

Then again, I haven't seen any toads yet, so maybe just missed them!

Cheers,

Rob

Yes it is a wee bit high in places - you would hope that the snakes would have found flood free areas of their hibernation areas and of course they may have found other areas to hibernate away from the flood water

Mortality may have happened due to flooding but with the milder weather this may have given the opportunity for the snakes to move....but we wouldnt know until later in the year.

I have found one hibernacula within several hundred acres of farmland down here so there may be other hibernacula in the area I just have to find them - the summer feeding grounds - lower parts of the farm, river floodplain, trout fishing lakes etc are very high in water and so I would expect to find grassies down here in the summer.

Regards

Jon

Hi Rob, you can't miss it in Essex, I was flying around last week and the standing water in the fields is obvious as are swollen rivers. (makes me wonder why the next day I managed to bog my truck down in a field - should have known better ). Still it did poor down for weeks after Christmas - soon they will be telling us there isn't enough water agian. I've not seen any detrimental effects at any of my sites though.

The weather has been odd for sightings, some days it is warming up very quickly, others it looks right but is actually colder than it appears - maybe this explains the low sightings Rob?

Yes there has been a lot of water about - wellies rather than walking boots for site visits this spring.  But both my local sites are wet heaths and usually fairly wet anyway in the winter.  The two local hiberantion sites I know of are both on slightly higher ground - in the case of the Adders only very subtley so - and were clear of the nearby sheets of water.  And today it was noticably drier.  Not a huge number of sightings this morning - one coiled-up Adder, one Grass Snake (which at first i thought was a stick that looked like it had Grass Snake markings!) and one sub-adult Common Lizard under a tin.  There was intermitant bright sunshine but it was perhaps a bit breezy, with no butterflies out.  First Bee Flies of the year though.

Peter

Thanks for getting back guys (and girls!).

It's funny, but every single year is just slightly different in some way and patterns seem to take about a dozen years before they emerge.

Personally i don't believe all this global warming clap trap (Earth's cycles more like) but I was hoping that this year with the warmer winter we might see lots of Grassies by now, still, as you say gemma, it is sometimes colder than it looks through the window!

R

The David Bellamy Climate Change denial award goes to.....

JC

Jim,

I have a few shots on the camera (on film! old timer) but 8 out of 24 is not very good for the 20th March! Mind you, in 2003, it was saturday March 22nd when all the Grassie balls appeared, so fingers crossed.

As for greenhouse denials; how could you believe it Jon?? It's claptrap mate, just a focus for taxes! They've taxed us to the hilt in every other department, so they have to do this..... It is a FACT, that the tilting cycle of the earths rotation around the sun, brings colder and warmer climates. In fact, we're still technically in an "ice age" and it was far far hotter when the dinosaurs walked the planet. The CO2 in the atmosphere in that era was far greater than it is now, simply because of the lack of plant growth.

If you believe in the 'global warming' scenario, show me the hard evidence, not circumstancial breaking off of some ice flow somewhere. Then tell me for definite that it hasn't got anything whatsoever to do with those Earth's natural cycles......No, thought not!

And..... what was the point of installing catalytic convertors in cars for the MOTs when they only last two years and then still taxing the so called gas guzzlers despite the convertors? exactly.

R.....is for rant!