Grass snakes (Natrix natrix) are the only British snake to lay eggs, they are laid in late spring or summer in compost heaps or somewhere similar, where the rotting vegetation provides the warmth needed for the eggs to hatch. Incubation takes six to eight weeks and the young are helped to exit the egg by means of an egg tooth, which soon disappears it being of no further use.
The newly hatched are fascinating, they are so tiny, the length of my little finger only thinner and already identifiable as grass snakes.In three years the young males will be mature adult grass snakes, the young females take a year or two more to reach maturity, now they are both ready to breed.
As adults they are now ready to shed their skin, the female does this once a year just prior to egg laying, whereas the male sheds his skin twice a year. I have been lucky enough to find a shed skin in the garden.
Every year we watch the grass snakes enjoying the garden, they bask in the sun, this is necessary for them to warm up as they are cold blooded creatures and without warmth they cannot move with ease or properly digest their food.
We find the best time and place to see them in the summer, is on a warm day, where they will be sure to be in the larger of our ponds, or basking nearby. Once warmed up grass snakes are very fast moving and unless a person is aware enough to tread slowly and carefully it will be difficult for them to watch or even catch sight of grass snakes behaving naturally.
They are said to eat fish, but we have more trouble with the herons and local cats taking them. We also have newts, toads and frogs in the garden and a very healthy population of short tailed voles, so clearly there is a good balance of wildlife here.
The weather during the winter is too cold for grass snakes to survive, so they need the shelter of piles of leaf litter, compost heaps or the all important wood piles, which are rich in insect life, a shelter for hedgehogs and also nesting places for birds.
No comments:
Post a Comment