Surrey Amphibian & Reptile Group (SARG)

Tuesday, 26 April 2011

SARG NEWS - 26 April 2011

New Forest Reptile Centre, Lyndhurst: Guided Visit
Tuesday 17th May 10:00 a.m.

Martin Noble will give a guided walk around the New Forest Reptile Centre, followed by a visit to his
collection of animals at his home (depending on numbers). Meet in the car park of the Reptile Centre
which is accessed via a track 2 miles west of Lyndhurst on the A35 (Christchurch Road). Admission to the
centre is free but there is a charge for parking. The visit will be 'weather permitting'.

No need to book in advance.

Monday, 18 April 2011

Reptile Rescue at Lightwater Country Park

Unfortunately, there was a large heathland wildfire today at Lightwater Country Park.
The Park is home to all six species of British reptile, including the rare Sand lizard and Smooth snake.

Many animals survive the fire itself, but can quickly die off from predation by kestrels and crows, or more slowly through lack of food. In the past we have been successful in rescuing many animals, by placing artificial refuges, then collecting the animals that hide under these felts or tins.

We are planning to conduct the first main sweep for survivors on Saturday morning (23rd April). All volunteers would be very welcome to assist.

Details can be found on the SARG diary/events web page, which will be updated between now and Saturday to keep you informed of any changes.

I hope to see some of you at the weekend, and to save a proportion of the surviving animals.

Cheers,

Steve

Monday, 21 March 2011

SARG NEWS - 21 March 2011

Chaps and Chapesses, (Land managers)

ARC are running a ridiculously cheap course, concerning habitat management for reptiles.

Course details can be found here: http://www.arc-trust.org/downloads/ReptileHabitatManagementtraining2011bookingform.pdf

Sunday, 6 February 2011

SARG NEWS - 07 February 2011

Dear Surrey ARG members and supporters

You may have heard already that I am doing a sponsored climb up Mount Kilimanjaro next week, to raise money for Surrey ARG and for Save the Rhino. Please support us if you can. You can donate, anonymously or otherwise, online at:

http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/rickanstis

Or give cash or cheques to me through any conventional way – all money is welcome.

I am meeting all the costs of the trip myself and so every penny of your donations will go straight to these two great causes; where every penny makes a difference.

Please give generously. Only one more week till we go!

All the very best, and thank you.

Rick Anstis

Secretary, Surrey Amphibian and Reptile Group

7, Arundel Road, Dorking, Surrey RH4 3HY

Every penny raised will be shared between Save the Rhino and The Surrey Amphibian and Reptile Group. Full details about these groups are at www.savetherhino.org and www.surrey-arg.org.uk

Friday, 22 October 2010

SARG NEWS - 22 October 2010

Every year, one of the south east amphibian and reptile groups hosts the regional meeting.
This year's meeting will be at Milton Keynes on 13th November 2010, hosted by Bucks ARG.

SARG will be showing a strong presence, providing one of the talks, and running one of the afternoon workshops.

These meetings are a great chance to catch up with the other groups, and for a good chin-wag about all things herpetological.

The talks are usually informative, and its a great chance to network.

This year's agenda can be downloaded here: ARG-UK SE Regional agenda

Steve

Sunday, 17 October 2010

SARG NEWS - 17 October 2010

For next year, SARG has chosen the adder to be its 'species in focus'. This fits in nicely with the current Adder Project, which is a collaboration of south east regional groups to accurately map the known distribution of the adder, and to find new locations.

This afternoon, SARG surveyors visited Banstead Heath to try to establish adder presence. It was late in the year for adder activity, but the bright sunshine raised our hopes. It is important to establish whether adders are present at Banstead, as the Heath is under threat from a major water pipeline development.

Most of the heath is deemed to offer suitable habitat, and the day was made more than worth while with two beautiful juvenile adders spotted and photographed.

If you have seen an adder in 2010, or even in past years, can you please submit a sighting report on the SARG website? We need an approximate date for the sighting, and you can click on a map to record the location. ALL sightings are valuable to us, and we can sort the probables from the certainties. If you have a photo of the animal you saw, please say so in the comments field.

Below is a picture of the first adder sighting today, courtesy of Jonathan Cooper, one of the Banstead Commons Conservators. Thanks also to Richard Knights, Banstead Commons Warden for giving up part of his Sunday to show us around the Heath.

Monday, 11 October 2010

SARG NEWS - 11 October 2010

Reptile Habitat Management Handbook - out now!

Everyone needs a good read now that it's too cold for surveys, and we have the perfect thing! The 'Reptile Habitat Management Handbook' has just been published. It's aimed at site managers, and those who advise on habitat management, and gives plenty of guidance aimed at improving the status of snakes and lizards.

Some forum members kindly gave us ideas and photos when we started writing this - many thanks, and we hope that you'll find it useful. The book was published by ARC, with part-funding from Natural England and the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation. Full details are: Edgar, P., Foster, J. & Baker, J. (2010). Reptile Habitat Management Handbook. Amphibian and Reptile Conservation, Bournemouth. ISBN 978-0-9566717-0-7.

Over the winter, we'll be running a jointly funded (Amphibian and Reptile Conservation and Natural England) series of training workshops for habitat managers. The aim will be to get the main messages out to those who are interested to learn more about incorporating reptile needs into site management. This is aimed at generalist site managers rather than those who already have a reptile focus to their work. We feel that just producing the handbook is only a start; real benefits for reptiles will need persistent promotion of the guidance and follow-up work, hence the workshops.

How do you get a copy?

One could be in the post to you already! Over the next couple of weeks, Amphibian and Reptile Conservation are doing a mass mail-out to a wide range of organisations working on habitat management. Everyone who contributed a photo that was used in the final version will also get a copy soon.

You can see a low resolution PDF version at: http://www.argukjb.org.uk/Downloads/RHMH%20LowRes.pdf

A high resolution version will be up soon at the ARC website: www.arc-trust.org

To get a free copy you can turn up to one of the conferences over the winter (eg ARC/BHS Scientific Meeting on 5 December), where there will be copies available. You can also request a copy directly from ARC - email enquiries@arc-trust.org or tel 01202 391319 (cost £3.00 to cover postage and handling; please enquire for bulk order costs).

How can forum members help?

Two ways spring to mind:

(a) By telling site managers and land managing organisations in your local patch about the handbook. Use its guidance to help enhance management for reptiles on sites that you visit, where necessary.

(b) By letting us have feedback on both format and content; anything missing, or advice that you think could be improved? The handbook gives a feedback email for this so that we can keep all your comments together.

Jim Foster

Friday, 17 September 2010

SARG Reptile Survey Team Note - 17 September 2010

Dear reptile surveyors,

Just a month to go until the end of the survey season (around mid-October, depending on the weather). Some notable recent events:

Anne found and photographed a Smooth snake at **********. This is the first official record of Ca at ********** ******* ****. We've had anecdotal reports, and even a photograph, but the location of the sighting never tallied with the right sort of habitat. So we now have a formal record, as a new Surrey Ca site.

Henry had a staggering survey day at ******** on Thursday with 12 Smooth snake records on one visit...all with great ID photographs.

Mary found and photographed a basking ball of five juvenile Smooth snakes at Frensham, just a little way from a tin concealing an adult pair. But she will have checked about a thousand tins by the end of the season!!

We've set up three new sites in Sussex: *********, Iping and **********, two of which support Sand lizard populations (not Iping...yet).

The statistics so far this year speak for themselves:

Tins_checked	Number_of_surveys	Sites_visited	Adder	Grass_snake	Smooth_snake	Slow_worm	Common_lizard	Sand_lizard	Total
3939	205	39	172	110	149	399	367	84	1281

These figures are amazing! - again this year, SARG will have generated more records for ARC than the entire national NARRS programme.
The site managers are using the distribution data to inform their management plans, and we are using to data to inform re-introductions of Smooth snake and Sand lizard, and of course we have generated amazing statistics which will make future survey more effective.

Very many thanks for all the hours of survey that you have put in. My gob has never been so smacked!

We will be running habitat management days with ARC at most of the rare reptile sites, so if you fancy a little winter exercise, just check the SARG diary. The first event has already happened, and there will be a couple per month until March.

Cheers for now,

Steve

Tuesday, 27 July 2010

SARG Reptile Survey Team Note - 28 July 2010

Folks,

You may know that there was a serious wildfire at Frensham Common on 11th July. There is a news link on the SARG homepage showing the fire damage.

Steve Webster, the Countryside Ranger for Frensham has asked SARG to help with a search and rescue for surviving reptiles, which are reported to be emerging from tree stumps and rabbit warrens, even after this amount of time. Steve is a 'good egg' and has been very supportive in the past, and its a worthwhile thing to do anyway.

I shall be conducting a search across the fire damaged area this Saturday (31st July), meeting outside the Ranger's hut by the Frensham Great Pond car park, at 09:00am. OSGB Grid ref: SU8447340567.

If any of you could spare an hour or two to help with the search, that would be great. If you can attend, please let me know to expect you, or if you're a bit late, just join us on the fire damaged area (we will be easy to spot!).

Many thanks,

Steve

Thursday, 3 June 2010

SARG NEWS - 03 June 2010

If you have a garden pond with tadpoles - watch out for froglets emerging over the next two weeks. If you have a lawn which is regularly mowed, it might be a good idea to keep the grass as short as possible over the next couple of months, otherwise the small froglets will seek cover in the long grass and may risk a nasty end when you do get the lawnmower out. Keeping the grass short will encourage them to seek shelter in hedgerows and flower borders.

On Sunday 6th June, SARG will be manning a stall at the Guildford Springwatch 'Wild day out' event in Shalford Park. As usual, we will have a collection of wild reptiles and amphibians, which will spend the day in vivaria, before being returned to the countryside at the end of the day. SARG experts will be fielding questions from the public, and providing advice to promote the conservation of the animals.

For more information visit The SWT Wild Day Out Website