Today I visited my regular spot for Adders (Vipera berus) as males usually start their activity around this time if there is sufficient sunshine and a slight increase in temperature. The weather was cold and wet and after hours of searching I found nothing, eventually after spending all day (7 hours!!!!) in the field I found two male adders. The first of 2012! Some other interesting observations from the day were several Deer, and a sadly dead on road Badger.
Additionally, by comparing photos of specimens from this site I have seen this male before, in April last year, but quite far from where he was today.





On Thursday night the weather was very mild and drizzling so I thought this could trigger the explosive breeding of Common frogs at a pond in my village. This results in carnage as they pile out of a drystone wall and into the road. Thankfully this is a country road so not too much traffic, but it only takes one car to kill dozens of them. However, on this occasion they had not yet emerged, but instead I found about 30 Palmate newts (Lissotriton helveticus) crossing the road to the pond, I of course moved them all and only one had been run over.




2 responses to “And so the madness begins….”
Great to see the reptiles beginning to show again. I am currently down on the south coast for a short break. We have not turned up any V.berus yet but they were apparently showing three weeks ago further along the coast at a well known site.
Wall lizards showing in the sunshine this week.
Rags.
Lovely blog youu have here