Resident Reptiles

It's been a great year for slow worms in the garden.  They turn up all over the place, but one of their favourite spots is at the base of the step up onto our terrace at the back of the vegetable garden.  We've seen three different individuals basking in the sun in this crack.  They live behind some nearby slates which are propped up against a bank, presumably providing them with warmth and shelter.

It's also been a great year for toads, and this one is by far the prettiest.  Both the slow worms and the toads are good for the garden, being bad for slugs and snails.

This lizard lives in the stone wall that runs along the side of the upper terrace, a place where we enjoy our sundowners on a sunny evening.  He has become very used to us, and quit eased to having his picture taken.  But this hasn't been such a good year for our garden lizards, with relatively few in them around.

We're not sure whether this is a pregnant female - which seems unlikely in the autumn - or a lizard that is stretching out its body to expose as much of it as possible to the early morning sun.

We've looked, but haven't seen the black adder again.  However, the local birds - mostly great tits and blue tits with a few chaffinches watching on - were making a terrible noise in the undergrowth at the back of the next door garden one day, and pointing at something.  Their angry twittering moved steadily towards the upper fence, near where we'd twice seen the adder. It's a behaviour we used to witness in Africa, where snakes were common, and we wondered whether they had seen, and were following the adder.