Much warmer today with continuing fine weather, so returned for another study of the damselfly emergence along the river - but as soon as I looked into the water, there, swimming leisurely along downstream in Boldings Brook, was a very fine large Grass Snake. If it had not been swimming it would have been very well camouflaged amongst fallen twigs and pieces of branch on the river bed. Its beautiful markings also gave it away - raising its head it showed a smart light yellow collar and the dark bands along the whole length of its body were clearly visible under water in the sun. It was well over one meter long, probably a female. Click on the photo below and scroll to the bottom of the page for a larger view. You can count the dark bands along its length.
Grass Snake (Natrix natrix)
It then swam out of the deeper river into a pile of twigs in the shallows and seemed to look at me with a bright beady eye, the round iris clearly visible. It turned and swam across to the other bank and started to wind its way up the bank taking a zigzag route and pausing now and then to soak up the sun, its tongue flicking continuously. It then quickly moved downstream, through the bank vegetation about a meter above the water and disappeared under overhanging nettles and dry grasses, still muddy from the high water.
Grass Snake takes the Zigzag route up the steep river bank.
If its a female it may well be searching for a nice dark warm spot in which to lay its eggs.
Above - probably a freshly emerged Large Red Damselfly,
its vivid colours not yet evident, perching on a blade of grass whilst it transforms.
There were many Beautiful Demoiselle damselflies and Large Red damselflies again on the river but surveying along the Arun upstream there were fewer than on Boldings Brook, the nature of the river being different in character.
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