Monday 20 July
I was relieved to wake up this morning without blisters, painful legs, or sunstroke. That’s the first ‘morning after, the walk before’ where I haven’t had some kind of infliction. Happy days.
Down at Heybridge today, and I went to check in with the grounds before going into the building. As I have already mentioned, we are hoping to make some positive changes to the land to make the most of it’s location and the wildlife it could attract. This will hopefully lead to some unique school experiences for our students and staff.
On Friday, I came across a couple of slowworms heating themselves under a plastic compost bin. One was there again this morning, an again this afternoon. We found two more under the lid. These legless lizards are often mistaken for snakes and are completely harmless. They’re also great friends to the gardener, eating copious numbers of slugs.
I picked one up today. It put such a wide smile on my face. The last time I held a slowworm was probably when I was about 10 years old. I can’t stop smiling just thinking about it. Their smooth, warm skin is unmistakable and the way they wrapped their body around my fingers. It triggers something special inside, I get a dopamine rush.
Me and my mates used to collect them from the railway line where I used to live in Ivybridge, Devon. Predictably, today as back then, this one deficated on my hand whilst I held it – a natural defensive behaviour. When I was a kid, I remember them losing their tails occasionally too.
We used to lay out corrugated iron sheets that we found lying around the disused railway sidings behind Blachford Road. Then, throughout the summer holidays, in between playing football, going to the River Erme woods and doing the library summer challenge, we would cycle up to check what was cooking under the metal.
There were so many sheets on the go that we would split up and check several each, only calling others over if there was something amazing like a nest of them or some of the legged varieties. That sort of find would require many swift hands. One hot afternoon, a cry piped up to my left. About 10 metres away my friend was holding up the fattest slowworm ever. It was also much longer than any we had seen before. He thought it may be pregnant or just eaten another slowworm.
Within just a few seconds, I noticed this slowworm also had a black zig-zag line down it’s back. My other mate must have noticed it too; in unison, like some scene out of the film Stand By Me, we both shouted “Adder! Shit!”
Now, maybe it’s my rose-tinted memory colouring in the sepia tinged mental images of my childhood. But, I can picture my friend swinging this sun-dozy reptile by it’s tale and throwing it (not very far) into a nearby gorse bush. Then we ran. And ran. We got on our bikes and peddled off home, laughing all the way.
But we came back the next day to check the corrugated sheets again. Well, I like to think so anyway.
The Bald Birder 