Hi all,

Yesterday, north EF, 12 O clock, barely 12 -13 deg in full sun, not a breath of wind, green woodpecker chastising me for half an hour while I stood and watched my first grassie of 2007.

But anyone thinking Nn fresh from Hibo are slow, forget it. I tried to swing my camera bag around my shoulder as slow as a snail and she was off....... for your info Jon, I'd say she was about 3 foot but thick set. Liked your pics of the GCN by the way.

Cheers

R

Saw my first Grass Snake of the year today at my local site.  Just one animal - and that was just a long grey tail rapidly disappearing under a bush, they move much faster than Adders.  I arrived at the site at 14:00 (having been looking for Adders elsewhere, more about that on another thread..) so possibly there had been more out earlier in the day.  It was warm - pushing 16C, with a stong breeze and, according to the local weather station, only 32% RH.  As last year, and the year before, the appearance of these snakes corresponded to the first good day of the spring for butterflies - with my first sightings of Brimstone, Comma and Peacock butterflies for the year.  Another indication was that it was too warm to wear a fleece!

Happy hunting, Peter

Peter 

Hmmm... scope for a paper in a learned journal on the correlation between the vestments needed by an observer to keep him warm and the observed incidence of reptiles.  Conclusions -

1.  Hot countries (i.e. string vest and corked hat territories) have richer observed herpetofauna.

2.  In Studland being a naturist offers the best chance of seeing Sand Lizards?

Peter

Peter Vaughan wrote: 2.  In Studland being a naturist offers the best chance of seeing Sand Lizards? Peter

I would add that at Studland you just don't now what you'll find in the heather, dressed or undressed - unless things have changed!

Suz,

it's not called 'studland' without reason lol.

I couldn't believe the first time I ever went there not really knowing about all that. I thought I had got off at the wrong planet when I'd set my tripod up to get a few shots of sand lizards and lo and behold two blokes walked passed in the you-know-what!

The Aussies are not the only ones to have Red-backs. ha

R

Look out for double mating in Grassies this year - spring and autumn

Regards

JC

Tony,

hahahahahaha, good one ,but aww yuk!

When I was there, I think it may have been too hot for Adders, it was utterly scorching by 11 O clock. Any way, by then, i sort of got the drift as to where I'd placed myself so made an exit sharpish lol.

Jon,

I'm out today scouring for mating couples....... no grass snakes of course. I must say the wind at 3mph... great, it looks promising. 6 footers here I come!

R

I will be out at my local farm later this morning - you aint gotta chance mate with these water cress grassies........

Jon

Hurray I found my first grassie of the year in a completely new place...

I also have the wounds to prove it - I had to dive into a bramble thicket. I am surveying my local farm and last year I found the grassies in their summer feeding grounds - so following a hunch I have started transects along suitable wintering sites - hedgerows, banks and small woodland areas

I was walking back from my last transect and I heard a rustle in the small woodland I was passing - sure enough a lovely male grass snake

While sorting out my camera I heard another rustle - a second grassie in the same place.....in I go again to catch the second

I think that this animal is a female - they were not big enough for the comp Rob - and I also left my measuring stick behind

But I am sure that this site is the overwintering site for these two animals......

More to come soon (pics etc)

Jon

Hi all,

Has anyone else noticed the extraordinary high water table levels this spring?

From my own point of view, this seems to have flooded many of the rabbit warrens that the Grass Snakes use to hibernate. Do you think that this may have caused moratlity during hibernation as my numbers of sightings so far are definitely down this year???

Then again, I haven't seen any toads yet, so maybe just missed them!

Cheers,

Rob

Yes it is a wee bit high in places - you would hope that the snakes would have found flood free areas of their hibernation areas and of course they may have found other areas to hibernate away from the flood water

Mortality may have happened due to flooding but with the milder weather this may have given the opportunity for the snakes to move....but we wouldnt know until later in the year.

I have found one hibernacula within several hundred acres of farmland down here so there may be other hibernacula in the area I just have to find them - the summer feeding grounds - lower parts of the farm, river floodplain, trout fishing lakes etc are very high in water and so I would expect to find grassies down here in the summer.

Regards

Jon

Hi Rob, you can't miss it in Essex, I was flying around last week and the standing water in the fields is obvious as are swollen rivers. (makes me wonder why the next day I managed to bog my truck down in a field - should have known better ). Still it did poor down for weeks after Christmas - soon they will be telling us there isn't enough water agian. I've not seen any detrimental effects at any of my sites though.

The weather has been odd for sightings, some days it is warming up very quickly, others it looks right but is actually colder than it appears - maybe this explains the low sightings Rob?

Yes there has been a lot of water about - wellies rather than walking boots for site visits this spring.  But both my local sites are wet heaths and usually fairly wet anyway in the winter.  The two local hiberantion sites I know of are both on slightly higher ground - in the case of the Adders only very subtley so - and were clear of the nearby sheets of water.  And today it was noticably drier.  Not a huge number of sightings this morning - one coiled-up Adder, one Grass Snake (which at first i thought was a stick that looked like it had Grass Snake markings!) and one sub-adult Common Lizard under a tin.  There was intermitant bright sunshine but it was perhaps a bit breezy, with no butterflies out.  First Bee Flies of the year though.

Peter

Thanks for getting back guys (and girls!).

It's funny, but every single year is just slightly different in some way and patterns seem to take about a dozen years before they emerge.

Personally i don't believe all this global warming clap trap (Earth's cycles more like) but I was hoping that this year with the warmer winter we might see lots of Grassies by now, still, as you say gemma, it is sometimes colder than it looks through the window!

R

The David Bellamy Climate Change denial award goes to.....

JC

Jim,

I have a few shots on the camera (on film! old timer) but 8 out of 24 is not very good for the 20th March! Mind you, in 2003, it was saturday March 22nd when all the Grassie balls appeared, so fingers crossed.

As for greenhouse denials; how could you believe it Jon?? It's claptrap mate, just a focus for taxes! They've taxed us to the hilt in every other department, so they have to do this..... It is a FACT, that the tilting cycle of the earths rotation around the sun, brings colder and warmer climates. In fact, we're still technically in an "ice age" and it was far far hotter when the dinosaurs walked the planet. The CO2 in the atmosphere in that era was far greater than it is now, simply because of the lack of plant growth.

If you believe in the 'global warming' scenario, show me the hard evidence, not circumstancial breaking off of some ice flow somewhere. Then tell me for definite that it hasn't got anything whatsoever to do with those Earth's natural cycles......No, thought not!

And..... what was the point of installing catalytic convertors in cars for the MOTs when they only last two years and then still taxing the so called gas guzzlers despite the convertors? exactly.

R.....is for rant!

Blimey Rob you sound like you must own a 4x4

Jon, have you seen the research that is now out for UK climate in the middle ages. It was far hotter than it is now - for hundreds of years. Wasn't down to my Land Rovers then was it? As expected in an interglacial period it then cooled down - now it has risen a little again but when compared to the middle ages it's just a tiny blip.

From some of the stuff I've seen I think Rob is right, the whole thing is a bandwagon. Though I must admit the findings on global dimming have interested me. The theory being that with all those aeroplanes dumping vapour trails into the atmosphere it causes a certain amount of cooling by blocking the suns rays. This leaves me to conclusion that I should therefore fly as much as possible to cool the planet down - well until the next ice age comes.

Donations to the Gemma Fairchild AvGas fund appreciated  (You now know it will save the world).. (probably not)

Your in denial glasping at anything that will keep the status quo and who wouldnt (Gemma & Rob)

Thanks caleb

Jon

I'm not in denial about anything - you all care about global warming? Take a look at entropy and enthropy - the whole universe was doomed from day 1

It is a political bandwagon - if you can't see it fine.

Yes I know its a political band wagon - it is becoming fashionable to jump on as David Blair is doing to oust Tony Cameron from office

I mean the New new Labour is just round the corner or is is the conservatives we have in at the moment.....

'If voting changed anything they would abolish it' anon

JC

Sorry about that

it was an anarchist proverb though

Okay I will answer the ARG UK forum I will have to just get back to the c.....

No okay I will get onto it

JC

Hahahahaha,

Gemma great, hilarious. Ahhhh, feel much better now

But what a great quote from anon via Jon....... Mmmmmm.

And no I haven't got a 4x4 anymore as it died and went to be dismembered. However, neither am I sheep, baaaaaaaaaaa, and thats exactly what they want people to be and follow unquestioningly. But like you, I too am interested in that global dimming stuff and the 7 day weather pattern that suddenly changed when 9/11 forced all the planes to the ground. Weird. And that much I'll concede to Jon and the warming gang.

R

this was discussed on raio 5 live yesterday. coupled with the documentary on channel 4 last week which put the co2 arguament into a political context (sorry anarchists) it really makes you think.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Chilling-Stars-Theory-Climate-Change/dp/1840468157/ref=sr_1_1/203-8825418-7097548?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1174584163&sr=1-1 - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Chilling-Stars-Theory-Climate-Change /dp/1840468157/ref=sr_1_1/203-8825418-7097548?ie=UTF8&s= books&qid=1174584163&sr=1-1

gemma - in a rather nice ironic twist, i was given a copy of richard dawkins' the god delusion for christmas. most entertaining, although it lost me a bit in the middle...memes?

tim

See Rob you should have bought a land rover - then you could have fixed it instead of binning it - terrible for the environment you know throwing away vehicles tut, tut  I've just worked out our 4x4s have a combined age of 56 years how very green I am indeed considering the real impact of vehicles occurs during manufacture and disposal.

Tim memes simply equates religious belief to Father Christmas in my opinion. A myth handed down to each generation and perpetuated by those who have realised it is a myth in the naive belief that those less jaded then themselves will still gain some benefit from it. Trouble with this is the way religion seems to spawn in isolation i.e. I cannot think of any society that didn't have some form of belief structure. Damn I'm talking about religion. 

Still enough of the pseudo-intelligent garble from me, I've just heard the shocking news that the sun is dying and will eventually become a red giant and engulf the whole of our solar system  Good job life exists elsewhere really.  (In case Caleb wants to argue this point my reference is the Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy)

Oh yeah, that bloke in the wheel chair that has an IQ of a million, I like him.....Lol.

First sighting (obscure as it may be) at new location Holyfields lake! Excellent!

James, Hi,

yes I'm afraid that Holyfields is on the Essex/Herts border.

Cheers

Rob

Send EARG the record Rob

mailto:essex_arg@hotmail.com - essex_arg@hotmail.com

Regards

Jon