Mice and Snakes
September is a very busy month for our surveyors as it’s one of the best times for picking up reptile and dormouse activity both common requirements for Arc’s clients.
We put out squares (more rectangles really) of black shed-felt (just the cheap stuff) in likely and appropriate places to attract basking reptiles enabling us to quickly sample a local population. The black felt warms up very quickly and on a coolish morning in early autumn that’s exactly where reptiles will head to get their energy boost for the day. Slow worms are the commest catch but we do come across sites where grass snakes and adders are coiled there under felts when we lift them, quite something to see. Interestingly lizards rarely use these shelters but we can make the felts a little more attractive to them it seems by putting a little fold along one side which, for some reason, they seem to appreciate. Here are slow worms in typical pose beneath one of our refuges:
Dormice too are very active in September, building nests and general busying themselves for the coming winter. To survey for these little mammals we put up simple plastic tubes with a wooden insert as temporary nesting habitat. So long as these are in good spots at the right time and left for long enough they generally produce results when finally checked. Here’s a tube and it’s nest from a large survey here on the Island:
