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Portland Dorset |
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Boris the Berus
Senior Member Joined: 15 Mar 2008 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 67 |
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Posted: 27 Mar 2008 at 12:43pm |
Has anyone got any knowledge of likely adder spots on Portland (Dorset). The last two I've seen were both during the month of September and were on paths basking in the afternoon. Several friends of mine have seen a few during the summer months. I've asked a few people on the Island and have a couple ideas as to where the dens are. Is it possible that due to the wind and cooler air temperatures near the sea that the snakes don't start appearing until quite late. I've not seen any so far this year. I'd be grateful of any information/local knowledge.
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Vicar
Senior Member Joined: 02 Sep 2004 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 1184 |
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Boris,
I don't know Portland very well, but I have heard that it is not particularly good for native reptiles, although there are of course a lot of introduced wall lizards. There are also a lot of slow worms in the quarries. A friend has told me of spotting adders on the west side of the peninsular, close by the old admiralty research site. Best of luck ! |
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Boris the Berus
Senior Member Joined: 15 Mar 2008 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 67 |
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I went out on Portland yesterday and only found a small slow worm. These two adders were seen 1 year apart. The small brown one was seen in September 2006 and the larger green one was seen exactly one year later almost to the day. These adders were found 150 metres apart. I've seen a lizard and loads of slow worms in the same area. Sorry about the poor quality of the phone pictures. I now take my camera everywhere now that I've started to actively search for reptiles. |
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Boris the Berus
Senior Member Joined: 15 Mar 2008 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 67 |
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Still no adders. Found these today and yesterday......
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Suzi
Senior Member Joined: 06 Apr 2005 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 1025 |
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I think it's a year to today that I was at Portland. A cracking day weatherwise after a dismal cold spell I think. The day started brill within a few minutes of leaving the car we were looking at a quarry above the sea which was crawling with wall lizards. I thought this is great we'll see loads of stuff today. Funny thing after we left that quarry we never saw another reptile all day! We poked about in all the likely places and walked round both sides of the Bill - nowt!
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Suz
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Boris the Berus
Senior Member Joined: 15 Mar 2008 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 67 |
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Portland this afternoon....... I could only get a couple pictures of the adder because he heard me coming and was off like a shot. Hopefully I'll have better luck next time! |
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Boris the Berus
Senior Member Joined: 15 Mar 2008 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 67 |
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Boris the Berus
Senior Member Joined: 15 Mar 2008 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 67 |
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Wolfgang Wuster
Senior Member Joined: 23 Apr 2003 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 374 |
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To quote Lou Reed, "...he was a she..." Off to take a walk on the wild side, Wolfgang |
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Wolfgang Wüster
School of Biological Sciences, University of Wales, Bangor http://pages.bangor.ac.uk/~bss166/ |
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Boris the Berus
Senior Member Joined: 15 Mar 2008 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 67 |
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What are the tell tail (excuse the pun) signs to look for when trying to work out the sex of an adder? In particular what gives it away in these photos?
Thanks in advance. |
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