England Awakens

[Liam Russell]

What with the dreadful weather and limited time it's been a slow start to the season. But things are picking up now. First some adders from Yorkshire in late March.


















Managed to get to some sand lizard sites in Dorset for the first time today, quite a few about but none have sloughed yet. Very late...

[Jürgen Gebhart]

Great shots!!!

[Mario Schweiger]

one of the two berus on the last vipers pic looks like to be a bit greenish

Mario

[Jeroen Speybroeck]

Good stuff! Is this the first Coronella on the forum this year..?

[Paul Lambourne]

Liam

Nice overview of the year so far, did you do wall and green lizards whilst you were in Dorset? The wall lizards seemed to be the first reptiles out this year!

I hope the very spoilt mainland European members of the forum appreciate how difficult it is to get a decent coronella picture in the UK.

Paul

[Niklas Ban]

Very great ! The coronella makes me joealous but at the moment every snake picture makes me jealous, because I didn't found one this year until yet

[Jeroen Speybroeck]

Well, yes indeed, Paul, I was expecting e.g. Daniel Bohle to come up with this year's first Coronella, rather than Liam with this UK rarity.

I would guess wall lizards can be the first active reptile species any year everywhere (as we discussed before) - they seem to switch on and off more easily then other species? Fire salamander is also very flexible - just a milder couple of days between periods of frost can lure many outside, as exemplified nicely by the past winter. Amazing capacities, which entail much higher energy costs in endotherm animals.

If it's any consolation, Niklas, I haven't seen a single snake this year either . Even by my standards, that late, as I usually manage to squeeze in an adder or two in April. My first 2013 snake will be on Milos next Sunday

[Niklas Ban]

If it's any consolation, Niklas, I haven't seen a single snake this year either . Even by my standards, that late, as I usually manage to squeeze in an adder or two in April. My first 2013 snake will be on Milos next Sunday

The best luck to you for Milos. Maybe tommorow the first natrix will show off

[Daniel Bohle]

Well, yes indeed, Paul, I was expecting e.g. Daniel Bohle to come up with this year's first Coronella, rather than Liam with this UK rarity.

Yes, due to the weather, my ladies and some other things my adder count is something like 62 so far instead of a few hundred
So I decided to skip visiting the coronella hibernaculum this year to safe every free minute for the berus.

[Liam Russell]

I actually found two Coronella but as I was having a strictly in situ day, I was too slow to get a picture of the second.

Nice overview of the year so far, did you do wall and green lizards whilst you were in Dorset? The wall lizards seemed to be the first reptiles out this year!

I didn't try there. If the sand lizards haven't shed yet, I doubt the greens have (I like them pretty) and I have soooo many Podarcis pictures from that site! I haven't heard of anyone even seeing the greens yet.

You are right though, the first wall lizard I head reported this year was 11th January. I think they can be seen on a sunny day any time of year. Someone measured the surface temperature of the rocks they live on as 25°C with air temp <10°C in March...