During one of my regular autumn visits to our staff training facility, Dickenson’s Meadow @ Rutland Water, I found this juvenile grass snake Natrix natrix.
We’ve previously carried out numerous projects on the field to enhance the habitat and as part of this, we placed a number of reptile refugia around the site boundary.
Earlier this summer one of our senior ecologists also found a pregnant slow worm Anguis fragilis, an ovoviviparous species which means that they lay eggs internally but give birth to live young. Slow worms are uncommon around Rutland Water. Retired RW Reserve Manager Tim Appleton, who was with me at the time, exclaimed that he hadn’t seen one on the reserve for around 30 years.
John Condron | Sept 2021