We went for a walk on a slightly damp Thursday morning and were saddened to see that a number of saplings next to the car park had been snapped off and a bit more damage had been carried out on the notice board. I'm not sure when all this happened but guess it was a few days before we made our rounds.
We were showing off the reserve to a visiting herpetology expert, in the hope that she might declare the wet woodland as perfect amphibian and reptile habitat. Unfortunately, she found no encouraging signs of any herpetofauna activity, but if anyone knows any different please let me know. On a warm day it often appears that conditions are ideal for lizards, or maybe grass snakes, but I have yet to see any reptiles here.
We moved on to the main millpond and looked at the end near Barnard's Tower where a still-pond area is being created. Our expert felt that we should carry out a pond survey, including overnight bottle trapping, torch light searches or netting to identify which species were currently resident. Has anyone seen any spawn, tadpoles or adults either in the past or recently?
In an ideal world a separate amphibian pond would be preferable because of the likelihood of predatory species already being present. Has anyone any views on this?
added by JARC
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