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Slowworms at Night

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    Posted: 09 Oct 2003 at 10:37pm

Has anyone found Slowworms out at night?

Adders and Grass snakes are known to be active at night int he summer, A slowworm was found after dark within my Parents garden munching on a snail (10.30pm).

Obviously the sighting of such a secretive reptile would be hard but has anyone stumbled across them after Dark?

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Herpetologic Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 10 Oct 2003 at 9:50am
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote calumma Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 10 Oct 2003 at 12:04pm
Jon, I have never seen grass snakes active at night when conducting amphibian surveys.

However, I concur with David's observations on the importance of night time temperatures, depth of vegetation under refugia and ensuring that refugia are placed in such a way that different aspects are sampled.

In fact I have had data loggers under refugia on one of my study sites this year and I should be able to relate previous nights temperatures with daytime encounter rate. Unfortunately night time activity is difficult to directly investigate since nocturnal slow-worm don't really need to use refugia for basking .

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote administrator Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 19 Oct 2003 at 11:33am

A couple of references to late night activity of grass snakes,

On page 44 of EN's Scientific series No.27 Reptile survey methods-

Bill Whitaker: I ask because I remember seeing grass snakes hunting for great crested newts at about 11 o'clock at night.

Tom Langton: I have seen the same kind of thing at 2 o'clock in the morning.

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote calumma Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 19 Oct 2003 at 11:49am
If you take into account the number of night time survey sessions by experienced herpetologists, nocturnal encounter rates for grass snake would appear to be very low indeed.

Perhaps such observations are restricted to specific locales, times of the year or weather conditions?

I rarely visit ponds late at night once the gcn season is over (mid-May ish).

Lee

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote administrator Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 19 Oct 2003 at 12:11pm

I've a site in mind where I hope to carry out targetted night surveys for adder next year, being bracken it's often possible to hear what they are upto and this will aid locating them at night.

Nearby is a pond where grass snakes hunt for palmate newts in a fairly restricted area, this could be watched at night. Hopefully I'll be able to get some data on the conditions when both species are active at night at this site, if they are at all.

You would think if it was a regular occurence grass snakes would be fairly easy to spot in open water whilst torching for GCN. Though I've a suspicion night activity of adder and grass snake might occur when day temperatures are getting restrictively hot in July/August.

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