Photos.

It's Springtime! - Part 2: Ribbit, ribbit.

I promised you animals this time, so here they are:


For those of you who don't know, I have started volunteering with the local Wildlife Trust. I go into their office one day a week to help out mostly with one project, which is a survey of amphibians and reptiles in Cambridge. Two days a week I go out with groups of volunteers to do maintenance work on local nature reserves and wildlife sites. Mostly the outdoor work involves clearing scrub, cutting grass or planting trees, but a few times it has been touring local sites looking for wildlife. A few weeks ago we visited a bunch of ponds to help kickstart the amphibian and reptile survey. There were frogs in abundance...





...and lots of frogspawn.


There is only one species each of frog, toad, and lizard in this area, and they are: the Common Frog, Common Toad, and Common Lizard. Whoo. OK, I lie - there is another species of lizard, but it isn't very common, and doesn't have any legs so it doesn't really look like a lizard anyway - it's called the Slow Worm. I haven't seen one yet and I have seen one lizard and many toads, but haven't managed to get a good picture.
The other amphibian/reptile species in the area are the Grass Snake, which I also haven't seen yet (although I just missed one slithering away into the grass yesterday) and two species of newts. The newt species are the Great Crested Newt and the Smooth Newt. Great Crested Newts are a threatened species and I haven't found any yet, but I have fished several Smooth Newts out of various ponds. This photo gives you an idea of how big they are (not very) and their general shape:

Close up, they have speckly orange bellies:

Isn't she cute?

Coming soon ... another zoo!

posted by Sian at 5:11 PM