900k in a day to scoop some UK herps

[Paul Lambourne]

Very late Thursday night I got a call from two mad twicher friends of mine to say they had, had a birding trip cancelled.. they had Friday off and wanted to get some UK herping done.. we felt it was possible to get all the UK reptiles in one day...

So 04:00 hrs on Friday morning saw me getting into my truck and driving to Enfield to meet the others, from Enfield we drove to Boscombe in Dorset, and as the first warming rays of the sun broke through the clouds we de bussed and started the walk down the sea side zig zagged path down the cliffes towards the beach.. I soon spotted the first wall lizard, this population is probably the largest population in the Uk,and all along the cliffe walls we saw many individuals starting to warm up for the day.. they were however extremly skittish and no pics were to be had.. as we neared the bottom section of the cliff Mark spotted the first lacerta biliniata of the day.

I know all you Europeans have shedloads of biliniata, but these are the only mainland UK population ( Jersey in the channel islands has a population) and we were very exited..
We headed back up the cliff seeing loads of wall lizards, they have completely displaced the vivipara in this area and at the top scrubby area we found a stunning juvenile biliniata..living up to its name...

Concious of our quest to see all the UK reptiles we reluctantly left this great spot and headed inland to an area of heathland. The area was noted for coronella austriaca,berus and agilis we arrived and quickly spread out to look for basking reptiles, the sun was very hot (for the UK ) by now.. we soon had viviparous, but again they were skitish and hard to get pics of.. we then encountered the UKs rarest reptile,coronella.. this animal has such a high level of protection in the UK that it is an offence to touch or photograph it.. in fact just mentioning it in this report probably means men in black tactical kit will water board me and my family will be sent to an intern camp where there is no Sky TV and only rough toilet paper coronella them selves dont appear to be rare, it is the suitable habit that is rare.. in good habitat the snakes are common..

I find it ironic that a four hour drive from my house in to France,at somewhere like Gorges au Chat and I can find loads of coronella, handle them,juggle with them if I want to, photograph them,play naked twister etc etc and there is no problem,a four hour drive from house, to another part of the UK and I am commiting an offence even to whisper smooth snake behing my hand..I am all for conservation, but it can get a bit anal sometimes.. any way.. I have no pics of smooth snakes to show as that would be illeagal.....

So having seen but not touched, photographed, urinated near or otherwise disturbed the coronella we headed on foot to a small lake where emperor dragonflys were patrolling..here under a board we found natrix.. another addition to our list! Due to shed and fairly grumpy..

carnivorous sundews at the natrix lake

Well pleased we returned to the car and headed for a site known to be good for agilis.. we arrived at the site in overcast conditions, but within five minutes had found a number of individuals basking on garden rubbish.. agilis is afforded the same level of protection in the UK as coronella, however as this was a private site, not in the normal heathland habitat, and living amongst garden debris, I am willing to post pictures( I am barricading my door as I type)

Elated at being most of the way through the UK list we set about flipping debris around a scrub area and to our delight found a solitatry berus under some tin

Job done..we were ecstatic all UK reptiles ticked.... (not counting tachemys scripta and zamenis longissimus)

The last flip also produced this little fella..

.

Happy with our herp tally we jumped in the car and head for some mammal sites, we had good views of Sika deer

We travelled to Wales and managed to see wild boar in the forest of Dean with piglets and finished the evening off watching lesser horseshoe bats emerging from their cave roost..

A long drive home followed, back to bed at 04:30 hrs.. it was my first proper herping trip since my operation and it was damn good to be backin the field.

Apologies to Illian for not taking you..it was extremely short notice! next time I promise

[Liam Russell]

Hello Paul, nice pictures. I was down at that very same place on Friday too, but not until late afternoon and the bilineata were pretty warm by then. Saw about 15 and managed to get a couple of photos

Not as many muralis around as there normally is, but still a few, including some tiddlers...

And one tiny viviparous lizard too

[Jürgen Gebhart]

Paul, congrats on your findings. I think not bad for a british herping trip! I wish I have Lacerta bilineata in my area also!!

Some great shots, escpecialy the pic of the sundews!

[Paul Lambourne]

Thanks chaps...

I think doing all the UK amphibs would be harder..

Liam, its a shame we did not meet up it is a great site.. a bit worrying that the common lizard in that area seems to be diminishing.. you certainly seemed to hit the site at a better time than me.. I was there around 08:30 hrs.

Cheers Paul

[Ilian Velikov]

Nice reptile combo, Paul! Although I appreciate it, you don't have to apologise for not taking me with you! It was kind enough for you to take me to your berus sites, so was Liam to take me to one of his Sand lizard sites...which reminds me that I didn't have any problems taking photos of the Smooth snakes there!? I know catching one is against the law but I didn't know anything about taking pictures! So , I have commited a crime without knowing it!

[Liam Russell]

So , I have commited a crime without knowing it!

Don't worry Ilian, you'll not go to gaol. I have a licence and you were technically my "assistant" at the time

Also, taking a photo is fine as long as you don't "disturb" the animal in the process.

[Liam Russell]

Thanks chaps...

I think doing all the UK amphibs would be harder..

Liam, its a shame we did not meet up it is a great site.. a bit worrying that the common lizard in that area seems to be diminishing.. you certainly seemed to hit the site at a better time than me.. I was there around 08:30 hrs.

Cheers Paul

I'm sure we'll meet there sometime Paul, I think you will meet every herpetologist in the UK there at one time or another!

I think in the long term it doesn't look good for the common lizards on that site. I'm sure the wall and green lizards are having a big impact, but with possible climate change and the current habitat management, their future doesn't look great. Further along the coast there is one population of sand lizards left with wall encroaching from both sides. It will be interesting to see how that goes as the habitat is in the sand lizard's favour, but we shall see...

[Jeroen Speybroeck]

Question: why would species be competitors in the UK, while they can coexist on the continent (having different niches)?

[Paul Lambourne]

Jeroen,

I think it is the limited habitat that is the problem. The site in question is a very small area of cliff and scrubland amidst a lot of sea side "tourist " development, and we are probably talking only a couple of hectares in size..

I think there is a competition for food and suitable basking sites, that would not happen in a larger area. The wall lizards, being more robust and "aggressive" seem to be thriving at the expense of the common lizards. Obviously the green lizards being some what larger and having slightly larger prey requirements do not directly compete with the common lizards.

There could be a number of reasons for the decline in common lizards, the habit management is non existent, given over to council priorities for tourism and dog walking. Grass mowing is unsympathetic and the cliffs are planted with ground cover plants,evergreen shrubs and alpine plants . It could simply be that the wall lizard is more suited to this "plastic" environment.

All I can say is I have noticed a huge increase in wall lizards over the last few years and on my last two visits to the site, I did not encounter any common lizards.

Cheers

Paul

[Liam Russell]

Question: why would species be competitors in the UK, while they can coexist on the continent (having different niches)?

Kind of like Paul said...

If the site where the green and wall lizards are was on the continent, I don't know if there would be common lizards there at all. But in the absence of wall lizards, the commons are able to utilize part of what would be the wall lizard niche elsewhere.

There is also a potential separate issue that some of the wall lizards, being of captive origins, may be carrying a disease which the native lizards are a lot more susceptible to.