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Where are the adults?!: |
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rhysrkid Senior Member Joined: 14 Nov 2003 No. of posts: 98  View other posts by rhysrkid |
Posted: 14 Oct 2004 Hi RAUK I've been surveying for grass snakes on my reserve at Heathrow since the middle of May. I'm glad to say that I have had a lot of success with roofing felt refugia. However, all of the individuals caught and logged have been juveniles or sub-adult. Adults have occasionally been seen (most often swimming in the reservoir) but as yet I have not found them under tiles or seen any this year. The number of young snakes is high and there is plenty of suitable egg-laying habitat available so I can only assume that adults are around somewhere. Could anyone suggest an explanation? I realise that perhaps the position of my refugia may have an affect but I believe they have been well situated. Cheers Rhys Rhys |
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GemmaJF Admin Group Joined: 25 Jan 2003 No. of posts: 2090  View other posts by GemmaJF |
Posted: 14 Oct 2004 Hi Rhys, I've seen this before as well. I'm afraid my only explanation is that juveniles are more likely to use cover objects than adults. Have you got tin as well as felt? They tend to attract adult snakes better, particularly big tins. Just about every adult grass snake I've ever seen under refugia was either pre-shed or had just fed, this has suggested to me in the past that grass snake only resort to refugia when they really need to increase body temperature to speed up metabolic processes. Gemma Fairchild, Independent Ecological Consultant |
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calumma Senior Member Joined: 27 Jun 2003 No. of posts: 351  View other posts by calumma |
Posted: 14 Oct 2004 Rhys, How large were your felt cover objects? Did you follow the Froglife guidelines and use 0.5 sq meter, or did you cut them 0.5 x 0.5 m? Lee Brady Kent Herpetofauna Recorder | Independent Ecological Consultant |
- Where are the adults?! |