STOBOROUGH SMOOTH SNAKE MATING BALL & WOGRET

Well managed a weekend at the Purbeck sites parked up me caravan at Wareham caravan club site the tattyist one on site. Seeing Wogret was so near and late Saturday arvo found one under a bit bark that went bananas bit me and itself looked like it was trying to swallow itself, then yesterday morning in gale force cold winds found one under a bit of rusty tin got s few hurried snaps.then went to Stoborough see a fleeting sign of spooky adders and sand lizards, then see one of the natural Englands wardens and helped him load a cooker that some bastard had dumped on the heath and he was saying you rarely spot smoothies in the open and I agreed, Well 10mins later I decided to walk on one of the hills at Hartland but decide it was to boggy were i was going to cross so aborted and started looking on a roadside embankment out of the wind with a bit of sun.I suddenly froze yes it was a small smoothie hiding from the cold wind amid the shielded base of the road side brambles that did not hopit but bit me when I touched it , then see an adder and sand lizard and managed to capture on camera,Seeing the wind was real bad decided to take the ferry to the mainland and headed to the Boscombe zig zag real bitter cold wind but still see four brave wall lizozs hiding in sheltered nooks out of the wind and managed to snap them even though cold they were still quick and evaded any attempts of capture ,Well seeing I was leaving this morning I decided for another quick look, so headed for this bit of embankment near the road,and out the corner of my eye no I dont believe it a another one in a different spot as I got closer even more disbelief it was a mating ball of I believe there was three but only see two heads and the photos are a bit naff, but who sees smoothies in the open let alone mating, my first.I see a total of six smooth snakes this weekend and if weather had been mor prudent who knows ? The bottom pic is what was the first glimpse , hope you all can make it out as I did see them all wriggling about and see at least two heads but sure there was a third one more likly another male having a go!Well did not see a grass snake so seeing all our native reptiles in the weekend was thwarted but did see a wall liz, keith

this ones the roadside embankment one
rusty tin one

Well this is how it first caught my eye






















Edited by AGILIS - 01 Jun 2011 at 7:37pm

PS I forgot to say - a mating ball !!!!!!  never heard of that in smooth snakes before - anyone else?

Nice pics Keith, I've only even seen 1 Ca in the open so to see that must've been something else!                      I too was down in Dorset with a couple of other RAUK members today looking at a couple of sites and the wind didn't help things at all - there weren't many visual sightings of anything.

Mark   

cheers Tim still Ive to win the lotto, Mark where abouts were you ?