RAUK e-Forum: MY FIRST INTRO TO A SMOOTHSNAKE


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Smooth Snake
RAUK e-Forum : Smooth Snake

Topic: MY FIRST INTRO TO A SMOOTHSNAKE

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ben rigsby
Senior Member

Joined: 27 April 2010
Location: United Kingdom
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 162

Posted: 21 June 2010 at 4:39pm \| IP Logged

great link lee!

funnily enough i one took a date there (ShaB Hill) one night years ago for post-pub meal rough n tumble in the car. as you do when romance is young. this was when "dogging" was fairly new.

we had no idea of the locations popularity as a site for the craze. we simply parked up in what seemed like the seclusion and romance of a leafy layby with a great view (even at night there were the lights) down over the severn.

NOT that we intended looking at it mind you.

i remember the two of us wondering why, at regular intervals, the HGV drivers who were parked up curtains drawn, kept getting out of their cabs and interrupting us by walking past with their torches.

we were laughably naive.

eventually my girlfriend said she felt uneasy and we left. the seal of my condom sadly unbroken that night.

returning to the subj of herps though, this spot and very close by CRICKLEY HILL, LECKHAMPTON HILL and COLD SLAD have long been great places to see adders.
the DEVILS CHIMNEY is quite impressive too. though its only a folly and not old or natural.

fantastic views around there.
.
and not just of human genitalia.

ben

will
Senior Member

Joined: 27 February 2007
Location: United Kingdom
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 304

Posted: 21 June 2010 at 6:07pm \| IP Logged

Ben - getting the conversation back to snakes, as it were...I've been a regular visitor to Lecky Hill for around 15 years and I reckon numbers of adders are well down (didn't help that a 'beware adders' sign was up there til a few years ago). I also heard of a parent and toddler group who were instrumental in getting the adders exterminated at a nearby site in Gloucs because of the perceived risk to their infants..

ben rigsby
Senior Member

Joined: 27 April 2010
Location: United Kingdom
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 162

Posted: 21 June 2010 at 6:29pm \| IP Logged

thanks lee. ive not been to leckhampton hill for years myself so you would know better than i if the adder count's down. sorry we cant compare notes on your suspected viper nos reduction theory therefore! what do you think the reasons are if so? land use is unchanged. bad winter(s)?

i only knew L Hill was still a good site for the species as member kevinb has found there several times recently.

your last statement is very sad and shocking in this day and age.
surely not true or legal? whats your source?

ben

ben rigsby
Senior Member

Joined: 27 April 2010
Location: United Kingdom
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 162

Posted: 21 June 2010 at 6:58pm \| IP Logged

the above account was an excerpt from my forthcoming AUTOBIOGRAPHY*:

CONFESSIONS OF A HERPER.

*NOT published by FROGLIFE.

kevinb
Member
Member

Joined: 18 March 2009
Location: England
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 44

Posted: 21 June 2010 at 8:04pm \| IP Logged

I was a frequent visitor to Leckhampton area in 2007 and through photography managed to identify 30 individual Adders on the site. We had a lot of snow there in 2007/2008 which due to the altitude stayed for a long time. The following spring saw very few Adders despite many visits and then last year the local "conservation group" were up there and removed a lot of the cover on the site. The subsequent secondary growth has swamped the basking sites where I would expect to see them and so I rarely go there now.

AGILIS
Senior Member

Joined: 27 February 2007
Location: United Kingdom
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 621

Posted: 29 June 2010 at 8:09am \| IP Logged

great signe Lee I just see it

keith

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