It's OK, it's not a snake.
Whilst adding the above Slow Worm on irecord I received a notification that the record was from outside the known distribution for the species. A look on the NBN database showed no records for Slow Worm, Common Lizard, Adder and Grass Snake for Merthyr Tydfil CBC! And only Grass Snake appears to be recorded from the Cynon Valley! I've already submitted two records for Common Lizard (Mike, one was by the climbing centre). Another reminder to all to add the records of all species via SewbRECORD or irecord and fill in the gaps in the records.
I've got a total of 14 slow worm records for MTUA [42 individuals] entered up on MapMate. They should be on the sewbrec data base. Since the Merthyr Aberdare tunnel fiasco when all bat records (not just mine but also consultants) were dismissed by NRW. A bloke with a torch who found just an occasional dropping dismissed the possibility of the tunnel offering any roost potential. When the local county ecologists queried the survey method/results; Ms DDT replied; " Ah but now we have a survey by someone we have a lot of trust in" i.e. by someone who doesn't find anything!
ReplyDeleteI've submitted several records for Slow Worm, Grass Snake and Common Lizard, via MapMate, so they should all be on SEWBReC's database. As for NBN, I understand that not all the datasets from the LRCs are on there, so the results from there need to be viewed with caution, as was proved by my assertion, based on the NBN data, that there were no records of Bog Beacon in Glamorgan, whereas there are in fact several.
ReplyDeleteCheers guys, I thought the pair of you, plus Geri and Martin, would have submitted a significant number of records.
ReplyDeleteHave you ever been on Flatholm, Martin? The Slow Worms on there are of a blue spotted form, though it is only the females (I think) have them. Certainly, when I was on there in September 2001, we only found one which was a male and it didn't have the blue spots.
ReplyDeleteNo, not been over to Flatholm, I had heard that the Slow Worms there had blue spotting (though had forgotten about it till your post)
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