Mention has been made on these pages of the efforts made in recent times to improve the reserves value to amphibians and reptiles. Back in the spring a number of the recently dug ‘amphibian pools’ had frog spawn in them for the first time. Although some late frosts didn't help the frogs cause, certain pools hosted tadpoles and over time froglets were seen as miniature facsimiles of their parents.
The pools in question are hydrologically separate from other water bodies making fish colonisation more tricky and fish removal relatively easy. Fish can have a dramatic impact on amphibians as many view tadpoles as an easy and nutritious snack and will often go on snacking until there are no more tadpoles remaining to be snacked upon.
One of the many amphibian pools created over the past two winters.
A couple of weeks ago we had a toad wandering beside a pool, Anne has found newts occupying one of the new pools and in the past week both Nick T and I have seen grass snakes on their ‘grass snake’ piles (logs and vegetation) - a promising sign and possible evidence that these targeted habitat alterations are paying dividends. As grass snakes are primarily hunters of amphibians we would expect to see their numbers increase alongside that of their favoured prey and it appears that this is indeed the case, which is one of the more gratifying elements of this job - from planning to realisation.
The presence of vegetation piles besides water offer manifold grass snake benefits. As well as refugia for the snakes, the decomposing vegetation generates heat to incubate their eggs. Over the next few weeks ‘bootlace’ hatchlings will be emerging and slithering-forth into their wider watery world - so it may be that our otherwise unprepossessing piles of rotting reed are worthy of closer inspection henceforth!
A coiled grass snake.
I took a group up to the orchid meadow on Monday evening for the otter evening and frogs , newts and a common lizard were all found near the site of the old tractor shed.
It appears that I wrote this a day too early. Just this morning we found toat, smooth newt, common frog and grass snake all without looking!