Tag Archives: Common Lizard

Moths, Natural Beauty, nature, Reptiles

Enchantment! What gets you out of bed?

We are possessed — we tumble out of bed at the first ray of sunlight, Bill to rush out and be electrocuted in the morning dew, forgetting to switch off the mains before moving the sodden leads so that he can see what he has caught in his moth trap!

I follow, not to resuscitate but because the one thing I hate more than early mornings is being left out! And it’s like Christmas — you just don’t know what you will get!

Antler moth artistically posing on my rhubarb.
Buff arches
Black Arches Moth
Brown china mark
Canary shouldered thorn
Feathered gothic
Large emerald
Garden tiger moth
Gypsy moth male — slightly battered — not surprising, possibly blown from Europe.

Just a few of the 100 plus species of moth we have photographed since July — you can’t say they are dull!

But these are what gets me tip-toeing down the dewy track as the sun peeps over the hill!

Baby lizards

There seems to be a family of 7 or 8 babies and at least one adult that bask in the morning sun on the corrugated iron that we have put by the bench where we bask. They are charming and very brave — are they going to become accustomed to us and remain so as adults — I do hope so. We have made them an air-raid shelter but at the moment they seem to prefer to hide in the grass.

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Reptiles

Birth Announcement!

For the first time ever we are aware of baby lizards — tiny black skittering forms disappearing under the compost heap by the pond when we approach — here is one very magnified basking in a short period of sunlight today.

We have put out a piece of corrugated iron by the pond which they seem to like!

Maybe this is the mother of our little chap — enjoying the corrugated which was intended for slow worms (no sign of them yet!)

Bigger one seen at the Osprey Centre.
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Ecology, nature

Lockdown Liberty —

or are we just seeing what was there all along, albeit in the shadows.

My daughter lives in a modern development in the centre of Peterborough, a city of over 200,000 people. They don’t have jackals in the subways (like Tel Aviv) but since lockdown she has been working from home and has noticed snakes in the garden, grass snakes and there are adders too. Her neighbour recently opened the door to a Roe Deer.

Roe Deer in Peterborough thanks to Amberley McKeen

Feral goats have come down off the Great Orm, a hill in North Wales, to roam the streets of Llandudno left deserted by the tourists.

Locked down in Mid Wales we are spending much of our time out of doors and seeing more of the wildlife than I have ever done before.

Local Common Lizard making a hasty retreat

In the wood there are flashes of Pied Flycatchers and all around the sound of Wood Warblers, starting their little engines. A Redstart poses briefly in the sunshine:

We have discovered lizards for the first time, basking in the unseasonal sunshine — skittish and shy, unlike this celebrity cousin down the road at Ynes Hir — posing for the visitors to the reserve when I last visited.

I always knew we had newts in the pond but we recently noticed something very strange — some have great big (relatively) floppy, webbed hind feet and pin-like tail extensions —

Bigfoot newt — Actually a Palmate Newt (Lissotriton helveticus)
Rest assured they are breeding in our pond — here photographed with 2 larvae –babies still with external gills, unlike tadpoles they develop their front legs first.

In case you are in any doubt about the identity of these little beauties — look! No spots under the chin:

Ventral surface of Palmate Newt

Now we know that they are Palmate Newts we put them back quickly as they are protected!

Back home for tea having guiltily spent the afternoon pond dipping without even the pretence of a single grandchild but not before checking out the Pied Flycatchers nesting in the oak tree by the track.

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