Where have all the adders gone?

[Tilio-acerion]

14 minutes ago, Paul in the woods said:

Out of interest what do pheasants do to the adders? I've never seen pheasants eat a reptile. I've seen plenty of corvids and raptors eat them.

Well you have now..

[Paul in the woods]

11 minutes ago, Tilio-acerion said:

Well you have now..

Interesting, and from Wiki "small vertebrates like lizards, field voles, small mammals, and small birds occasionally taken "

 

I asked because we have a few pheasants that have escaped the local shoots and settled in. They've even raised young and I've never really seen them eat anything the size of a snake or vole.

 

The magpies on the other hand...

 

Is there any research as to how many snakes and lizards released pheasants will eat?

 

I would have thought, down here at least, it would be the increase in buzzards etc that would impact the adder population more.

Edited November 10, 2019 by Paul in the woods

[TIMON]

I’m going to work in South Africa, out in the sticks for couple of weeks, I really don’t mind if I don’t see ANY... I know there’s no shortage of them out there.

[Tilio-acerion]

5 minutes ago, Paul in the woods said:

Interesting, and from Wiki "small vertebrates like lizards, field voles, small mammals, and small birds occasionally taken "

 

I asked because we have a few pheasants that have escaped the local shoots and settled in. They've even raised young and I've never really seen them eat anything the size of a snake or vole.

 

The magpies on the other hand...

 

Is there any research as to how many snakes and lizards released pheasants will eat?

 

I would have thought, down here at least, it would be the increase in buzzards etc that would impact the adder population more.

Yes Buzzards also a significant factor...but then again their increased numbers can be linked to pheasant shoots 

Rise in population of crows and avian predators linked to pheasant shoots | Environment | The Guardian

WWW.THEGUARDIAN.COM

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Call for ecological impact assessment of huge numbers of non-native gamebirds...

 

[Paul in the woods]

6 minutes ago, Tilio-acerion said:

Yes Buzzards also a significant factor...but then again their increased numbers can be linked to pheasant shoots

Linked perhaps but so can many things. Again, round here it's the type of farming with silaging and slurry spreading.

 

Where did the photo of the pheasant come from? It's a grass snake by the looks of it and the red dot looks strange.

[Tilio-acerion]

1 hour ago, Paul in the woods said:

Linked perhaps but so can many things. Again, round here it's the type of farming with silaging and slurry spreading.

 

Where did the photo of the pheasant come from? It's a grass snake by the looks of it and the red dot looks strange.

Yes grass snake - here via this link

 

Edited November 10, 2019 by Tilio-acerion

[Matthew Storrs]

I was ditching with my digger last year and unknowingly scooped an added out of the ditch- fortunately it was unharmed and slithered away.

 

but a few years ago I was doing a fencing job on the moors- adders literally everywhere. Had to keep the dog kept in the truck all day! It was a remote location on a hot summers day  and the bracken had been mowed so lots of dry material for them to hide under...

[markieg31]

Been loads of sightings this year for round here of the black adder.

Dont get me started on pheasants! Think about the woodlands where phesents are. Only thing you will find is pheasents, corn and rats and not a lot else. When it rains, mud and pheasent shite running off into tributarys.

[Guest Gimlet]

Interesting. The place in question is a steep sided valley with woods at the top of either bank. The neighbouring landowner runs a massive pheasant shoot and the valley's owners have given them permission to run a drive across the valley. Consequently the place is absolutely thick with pheasants. 

 

It's a difficult one for me because I'm a shooting man, albeit mostly rifle shooting - small vermin and deer stalking, and about the only time I have a bang with a gas pipe is the occasional bit of pigeon decoying. I wouldn't say this on any of the shooting forums I'm on or I'd have some sort of fatua issued against me, but over the years I've found myself becoming more and more estranged from driven bird shoots. I'm loathe to say it, because the man is a political extremist and a hate-filled menace, but Chris Packham is right when he says that commercial game shoots are damaging the ecosystem with wildly over-populated pheasants.

This shoot in particular is absurdly overstocked. Driving up the valley, which is only about 8 hectares, there are several hundred birds visible at any one time and they're as tame as garden fowls. You're practically wading through them. It is fairly well keepered and the vermin does seem to be kept under control but they've done a lot of damage in other ways. I had walk around the neighbours estate the other week and they've introduced a lot of pernicious non-native plant species because they offer easy cover for the birds. There is box everywhere killing off ground flora in the woods and what looks like some sort of yucca/pandanus palm thing that is spreading everywhere like a disease. They've even introduced bamboo, of all hideous things, into wild chalk grassland for God's sake..

 

It makes me a bit mad to be honest. It brings shooting into disrepute and it's little more than environmental vandalism so a few surly nouveau riche knobs in tweeds can have some fun and the millionaire (London) landowner can make a few more quid. 

 

I confess I hadn't made the connection between pheasants and disappearing snake species, but that would indeed account for the loss of adders in this case. Bearing in mind this site is an SSSI and is subject to a Natural England ten year stewardship programme to restore the chalk grassland habitat, I'm surprised NE's inspectors haven't brought up the pheasant situation. I can only assume it's down to ignorance because they do sprout the most amazing amount of crap when it comes to conservation. University theorists I guess, with zero real life experience of the countryside. Maybe they should be discreetly apprised of the facts... 

Edited November 10, 2019 by Gimlet

[dumper]

52 minutes ago, TIMON said:

I’m going to work in South Africa, out in the sticks for couple of weeks, I really don’t mind if I don’t see ANY... I know there’s no shortage of them out there.

In South Africa I would be more worried by the black mamba it likes to climb trees and is fast