News
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Page last updated 2 May 2013.
27 April 2013 Toad Size Project
To assist with this national project being run by Amphibian and Reptile Conservation and ARG-UK, during this spring's migration male toads were measured for their snout-vent length at four of Derbyshire ARG's crossings. Volunteers at Foremark, Furness Vale, Grangemill and Radbourne measured up to 20 male toads a night during their toad crossing patrols, a difficult job in the dark with the toads determined not to stay still on the ruler for very long. For details of the project see the ARG-UK Project page http://www.arguk.org/toadsize2013-getting-the-measure-of-toads-that-cross-roads/
14 April 2013 Toads on the move
As the weather, especially night time temperatures, has warmed up the amphibians are starting to move. Those frogs who didn't make it to their ponds before the blizzards have been spawning this week and sites across the county are seeing toads moving across roads or appearing in ponds in preparation for breeding. As they are overlapping with the frogs I have seen male frogs on the back of female toads in the Gang Mine Nature Reserve dewpond today. The next few evenings will probably see a mass movement of toads to the ponds so our toad crossing patrols will be busy.
13 April 2013 Reptiles moving at last
With the warmer temperatures and most of the snow now melted on the moors, several female adders have come out of hibernation at long last joining the males, some of whom have been out and about since late February.
Also there have been sightings of grass snakes coming out of hibernation, about a month later than last year, with Tracy seeing 4 out at site in the NE of the county.
6 April 2013 Is spring on the way at last?
The cold wintry weather seems to be on the way out at long last with the strength of the sun increasing. The adder field trip meeting held today was postponed from March when there was the second day of a raging blizzard over the moors. In the warm sunshine the meeting was a success with 17 adders being seen by the participants, despite there still being some snow around in places.
18 March 2013 Frogs spawning
The cold wintry weather has delayed the start of the amphibian breeding season but in the last week frogs have started spawning in lowland parts of Derbyshire with several reports of spawn being sent in from Derby City Pond Wardens. Further north in the Peak District winter still has an icy grip on the landscape with no reports yet of frog spawn from that area.
13 March 2013 Snowy adders
The poor weather has played havoc with our adder survey season so far this year, However two intrepid surveyors, Paul & Tracy, set off for the Moors today but by the time they got there the early morning sunshine had given way to cloud and a snow storm in cold biting winds. They still found two adders out in clumps of vegetation sticking out of the snow. Photograph of one of them is on the front page of the ARG-UK website illustrating the Make the Adder Count article.
13 March 2013 Student reptile survey
DARG members Trevor Taylor and Chris Monk organised with lecturer Mary Rush for first year students at Broomfield campus of Derby College to put out nearly 50 cover objects for a reptile survey in the grounds. A mixture of metal "tins" and carpet tiles were placed in five areas judged to provide habitat for reptiles. They will be monitored during the year by students on the Countryside Management course.
2 March 2013 First lizards of the year
A few days with some sunshine after a cold dull week has started to bring out common lizards, the first was reported on the Peak District Moors on Thursday 28th Feb with more seen on Saturday 2nd March. Quite a few adders have also been seen in the more sheltered locations on the moors. No-one has reported any frog spawn to us yet
17 Feb 2013 First adders of the year
Just four days after the snow blizzards up in the Peak District, the melting and Sunday's sunshine has brought out the first adders of the year. At the three sites checked a total of 4 males were seen.
30 Jan 2013 Government shuts stable door after horse has bolted - and its not horse meat in lasagna
Environment Minister Richard Benyon has announced plans to ban the sale of 5 species of invasive alien water plants (water fern, parrot's feather, floating pennywort, water primrose and Australian swamp stonecrop) from April 2014, ie they can still be sold for at least another year. I suppose it will be better late than never but the fact that at least three of them are now widespread in ponds across England means that it will not have a significant effect on their spread to other water bodies.
27 Jan 2013 Herpetofauna Workers Meeting
A successful Herpetofauna Workers Meeting was held over this weekend at Heriot Watt University outside Edinburgh. This was well attended by people traveling from Southern England, Wales and the Republic of Ireland as well from Scotland and northern England. Despite the poor weather in the days leading up to the meeting everyone who had booked to attend did manage to make it
12 Jan 2013 New Toad Project
A joint ARG-UK and ARC project called ToadSize is planned for this spring to measure the length of a sample of male toads on their migration back to the ponds at sites across the UK. This is to see if toad mortality on busy roads is leading to a smaller sized population as toads don't live long enough to grow to full size. More details will be available later and circulated to our toad crossing volunteers.
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