Uncommon Common Lizard On Common

[Ian Bond]

Well not quite on Seaton Common but next to it.

Just a request to keep your eyes and ears peeled for reptiles when you are up the Tees Road area.

There was a report of a common lizard last year on land next to Seaton Common.  It was treated with a little circumspection in case it had been a case of mistaken identity of a newt.  However there have been another 3 sightings in the past month.  One basking in a bank on the Tees Road, one on Greenabella near the sea wall and another sighting in the same place as last year.  The first of these three reports I have complete confidence in and consequently I see no reason to doubt the others.

I am rather gobsmacked by these sightings given that, to my knowledge, there have never been any previous reports of lizards between Greatham Creek and Spion Kop Cemetery in the decades that naturalists of various persuasions have been looking at that area.  Add to that the finding of a grass snake in a garden at the extreme southern end of Seaton Carew a couple of years ago, it seems that there may be all sorts of unsuspected goings on beneath our feet.

Ian

[sidwemn]

Hi Ian,

have you considered putting out tin sheets in appropriate areas to see if you get any results?

Martyn

[Ian Bond]

Hi Martyn

I am hoping to put down some reptile refugia with Robert Woods from INCA later in the year.  The reptile records next to  Seaton Common came from that method employed by an environmental consultancy.

A couple of years back we got permission to put down some felts on Seaton Dunes, either side of the zinc road as that seemed promising.  We didn't find anything though we probably didn't use enough felts and some inevitably went missing.

We also tried it in Spion Kop as there have been unconfirmed reports from there, (I saw one myself on Old Cemetery Road) but again didn't find anything.

It looks like there are just some very small populations scattered about but we still don't know how far they are scattered.

cheers
Ian