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STOBOROUGH SMOOTH SNAKE MATING BALL & WOGRET |
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AGILIS
Senior Member Joined: 27 Feb 2007 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 1689 |
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Posted: 24 May 2011 at 7:00pm |
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 |
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LOCAL ICYNICAL CELTIC ECO WARRIOR AND FAILED DRUID
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will
Senior Member Joined: 27 Feb 2007 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 1830 |
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terrific Keith - reckon you and Tony 'armata' Phelps must be the only humans ever to see smooth snakes mating in the wild! also a valuable record of mating which confirms the few April/May records in press.
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will
Senior Member Joined: 27 Feb 2007 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 1830 |
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PS I forgot to say - a mating ball !!!!!! never heard of that in smooth snakes before - anyone else?
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AGILIS
Senior Member Joined: 27 Feb 2007 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 1689 |
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HI WILL Thing could have not been better as the conditions where real bad gale force cold winds that put a lot to ground , but this morning was great and I reckon they were all were making up lost time keith
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LOCAL ICYNICAL CELTIC ECO WARRIOR AND FAILED DRUID
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arvensis
Senior Member Joined: 15 Mar 2006 Location: Hampshire Status: Offline Points: 493 |
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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 |
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tim hamlett
Senior Member Joined: 17 Dec 2006 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 1062 |
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great stuff keith. what an experience...really pleased for you!
tim
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AGILIS
Senior Member Joined: 27 Feb 2007 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 1689 |
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cheers Tim still Ive to win the lotto, Mark where abouts were you ?
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LOCAL ICYNICAL CELTIC ECO WARRIOR AND FAILED DRUID
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herpetologic2
Forum Coordinator Joined: 15 Jun 2004 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 1511 |
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Excellent stuff!
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Report your sightings to the Record Pool http://arguk.org/recording
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