RAUK - Archived Forum - surveying with abundance of natural refug

Hello All,

I have recently visited a site that I intend to survey for slowworm and grass snake this year.  However I realise that this is going to be a lot more difficult then usual; firstly I only expect there to be a fairly small population, but the largest problem is that the site is full of refugia.  The site is brown field with many large piles of rubble that have mostly vegetated; it has several piles of car tyres and lots of fly tipping (metal fridges etc).  With such an abundance of ænaturalÆ refugia, it will be impossible to tempt reptiles onto targeted tins, but also any reptiles present could bask just about anywhere on site.

Would the most appropriate thing be to not put out any more refugia and just carefully search the whole site, with an increased number of visits?

Any suggestions appreciated.

Has there been any record of reptiles in this site or is this just to see if there are any present?

You probably wouldnt need to put down any refugia if there is so much rubble and such there. What makes you think the area is sutible for Grass snakes?

I've surveyed a site very much like the one you describe. Firstly, most viviparous lizards were recorded on the tyres in good weather, so that was easy, I just did a walk through transect counting them on each survey session.

Slow-worm were revealed under artificial refugia, both tin and felt, and also the abundant car doors and general junk, it took longer for the adults in particular to use artificial refugia though than I would normally expect.

Not so sure how you will target the grass snakes, refugia often don't attract adults that well any way though large tins seem to do best.

My site did have a good adder population, practically all the records were visual and it did take more than the usual visits (18) before detecting the first neonate!

So basicly I combined careful visual search and carefully placed refugia at a fairly low density.