Snakes Alive!
I have a few sparrow nest boxes up around the house and both male and female House Sparrows (Passer domesticus) are fully occupied with nest building now – they have stripped next door’s pampas grass (I knew it was useful for something!) and have also taken some the young leaves of a Rowan I have in the garden. It’s good to see them back in numbers now as a few years ago they were quite scarce garden visitors.
I was really pleased to see a male adder (Vipera berus)on the Forest yesterday afternoon basking on a sunny bank under some Gorse. This is an ideal spot for them and I have been looking for some since it starts to warm up in March and they get active.
Not the best of pictures as I just managed to snap him before he disappeared in the dry grass. If you can zoom in you can just spot his red eye. If it had been a female I might have missed her as she is brown in colour and much better camouflaged against a dead grass background.
I haven’t seen one for years and maybe this is not too surprising as they are sensitive to movement and vibration, so being preceded most of the time on my walks by a 40kg hound blundering through the undergrowth (hardly stealthy) I count myself lucky to see any wildlife at all!
The crab apple (Malus sylvestris) in the wood is now in full flower, so here’s a nice flower picture to finish with.
