Grass Snake

[seany boy]

Whilst out and about the other morning, just a little further down this track......

I was lucky enough to see this Grass Snake........

Boy did it move fast, i only managed the one picture and the quality's not great but thought i'd post it anyway.

Same picture cropped........

 

[Toddy]

Nice I've never been quick enough to do more than catch a glimpse as they slipped away let alone get a photograph

cheers,
Toddy

 

[hiraeth]

only ever been lucky enough to have come across them a couple of times, and those were quick to dissapear ,adders on the outher hand are quite common here

 

[rancid badger]

We spent a couple of days last September (I think) building grass snake hibernaculums (sp?) ,somewhere for them to "over winter" if I remember correctly!
A cracking spot, quite high on a river bank. We coppiced the alder, ash, sycamore and willow in the area to both open it up to more sunlight and to provide the materials required.

We dug out two areas, 2m square or there abouts and about 50cm deep then filled them with the coppiced timber, so that there were loads of nooks and crannies. they were piled about a metre high and to be honest, looked like big signal type fires, just waiting to be set alight.
The conservation chappy seemed happy enough with them anyway
They were covered with the soil we had dug out and then left to see what happens.



R.B.

 

[rancid badger]

only ever been lucky enough to have come across them a couple of times, and those were quick to dissapear ,adders on the outher hand are quite common here

That reminds me of a summer weekend, many years ago now (about 25), we were up on Otterburn Ranges and were waiting for a 4 tonner, to pick us up to go home. There were a few bits of very rusty, corrugated iron sheeting lying next to the culvert/small bridge we were using for our R.V..
One of the lads was mooching around and turned over one of the sheets, then dropped to the ground and grabbed a "grass snake" he was delighted and happily let the thing twine around his wrist and hand,till the Sgt. explained that what he had there was;" a common or garden Adder! "
To the lad's credit he didn't panic, he just knelt down, lay his hand on the ground and the adder sloped off into the undergrowth!
The lad's name was Jimmy if I remember right but he was almost immediately re-named "Snakey Jakey"

Oh the memories

R.B.

 

[Mesquite]

Great picture there Sean.

Last time I saw a grass snake was when I was a lad wandering round in the woods during the heatwave of '76 and I was wearing shorts and flip flops. I stopped for a breather when I heard a rustling down by my feet so I looked down and saw this large grass snake slithering between my feet. I suprised myself with how high and how far back I leaped in a single bound.

I hasten to add my reaction was due to my growing up in Texas where we had rattlesnakes and copperheads in the woods and you really didn't want one of them sliding along between your bare feet

 

[Mesquite]

opps had connection probs and didn't realise this posted twice