We arrived at the first site at around 9:30. At first it was still a bit chilly with some wind and we had no luck but it started to warm up quickly and after around 20 minutes we found the first V.berus, basking on a piece of refugia! After that we found another one basking and strangely a third one who unlike the others was just wondering around the field!
First one...
Second...
..and third
The usual Zootoca was also there!
Paul also told me that there were some sites for newts nearby, so we decide we’ll go and check them too! We arrived at a patch of forest with some ponds and started newt hunting (well, at least Paul did
).Paul trying his luck with the net…
And it worked! We found all three species of newt native to the UK in one small pond! L.helveticus was also a new species for me so I was pretty excited!
L.vulgaris
L.helveticus
and T.cristatus
We left the newts in peace and headed to another of Paul’s berus sites where he had seen a black adder just the day before. By that time there was no sun whatsoever and after a few minutes searching the only thing we found were a couple of A.fragilis!
Then, just before we started to leave- there it was!!!
Not only that I saw a V.berus and L.helveticus for the first time but one of the berus was black! I couldn’t have asked for a better start of the herping year!
