Pond Success !

As part of our Species Recovery Plan, and in part mitigation, SARG created a new pond in Winter 2005/6 at East Surrey Hospital adjacent to an ancient Great Crested Newt (GCN) pond where a few of these rare animals were just about hanging on from year to year.

A couple of adult GCN and a few common newts were recorded in this newly created pond in late Spring 2006.

This week we have seen a large number of GCN eggs around most of the new pond perimeter! This bodes well for the future of this population.



Great Crested Newt egg, picture by Tanja Kessels.

Oi Ref...he bit me !

Faul; a word used as a charm against the bite of an adder:-Sume án word wið nædran bíte lǽraþ to cweðenne, ðæt is, Faul some teach us against bite of adder to speak one word, that is, Faul, L. M. 1, 45; Lchdm. ii. 114, 2.

AngloSaxon dictionary - Submitted by Julia

Dorset Trip

I've recently returned from a short break away in Dorset. Part of the goal for this trip was to see and photograph some of the introduced species of reptile that breed wild in this beautiful county.

The Island of Portland is famous for its lighthouse at Portland Bill. Less well known is that the island supports two colonies of the introduced Common wall lizard. The quarry at Cheyne Weare car poark located at the south east of the island is jam-packed full of the brown-backed form, and we were fortunate to witness territorial displays between males.



Moving further along the coast towards Bournemouth, we stopped off at Boscombe, near the Portman Ravine. This area also supports wall lizards (green-backed form), but also the largr Green lizard, the only UK site where this animal is known to breed in the wild.



Green lizards are much larger than our native common lizards as can be seen in the following comparison picture: