Slow Worms - Ideas On Creating Habitat.
A few years ago we noticed a cat running across our garden with bronze coloured snake in its mouth and we worked out it was probably a Slow Worm (Anguis fragilis) a reptile native to Eurasia. These legless lizards are also called a deaf adder or a blindworm.
So we asked ourselves the question ‘What are the key ingredients for creating a safer and better habitat for slow worms?’
1. A naturally occurring food source. 2. A warm sheltered location concealed from the gaze of predators. 3. Safe concealed access to a nearby deep, cavity-rich hibernation site among rocks, soil and logs. 4. To be left alone, un-disturbed.
Since then we think we have created the perfect Goldilocks environment for these shy creatures.
Created by placing a couple of old paving slabs on top of an ants nest on our lawn.... it gets 70% of the days sunshine which nicely warms the 50mm thick slabs. The slabs are set on 5 stones on the corners and centre which leave the slabs with a 10mm air gap above the ground. The ants obligingly deposited their ants eggs and soil frass below the slabs which the slow worms sift through to feed on the eggs.
We never walk on the slabs or the rock pile. And we let the grass grow long around the slabs to give the slow worms some protection. It’s also important not to disturb the slabs to allow the slow worms to establish.
Linked to these slabs, directly behind, there is a wilderness of about a tonne of dry stone wall debris piled about 600mm deep on ground. And importantly the area never floods.
After a few years we have established a colony of several generations of slow worms which can be seen by the varying sized creatures under the rocks. We are now looking to increase the area of raised slab habitats and introduce thicker undergrowth to help avoid predation which we think is evidenced by the number of slow worms which seem to have lost their tails. So I guess it’s still a work in progress.
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