James Chubb

First time for everything

Do you remember your first time? No, not that. Nor am I talking about Germanic butterscotch sweets either, I mean the first time you see something – seasonality.

My brain seems to be a bit of a sieve when it comes to dates, so I must admit that I have taken to carrying a notebook with me while I am out in the Countryside. In my defence it’s useful for noting mileage as I hack along the highways and byways of East Devon, but it also holds some important memories too. Notes and scribblings are more than just diversions or trivia, they can reveal trends and provide information about when things are happening in the natural world.

There have been a couple of interesting firsts in recent days. Earlier last week I was walking on Fire Beacon Hill, outside Sidmouth, checking reptile traps with no real hope of finding anything. But to my surprise, under one of the sheets was a pair of common lizards, huddling in the corner and still extremely groggy! They were just shedding their skins, which lizards tend to do freshly after emerging from hibernation, and were not quick to dash away when I rudely interrupted them.

As “Life in Cold Blood” has just come to the end of its dazzling run, perhaps this is an opportune moment to enthuse about reptiles once again, if you rather I didn’t – look away now…

As with any British name for plant or animal, the prefix ‘common’ often belies a wondrous and frequently uncommon beast or bloom. Again it is the case here with the common, or viviparous lizard. Measuring a little over ten centimetres, this little creature is a complicated animal. It has a rudimentary “third eye”, a light sensitive patch in the top of its head which it uses to influence its sun bathing. And soak up the sun it must, as it doesn’t lay eggs as most reptiles do, but rather retains the eggs within its body, to regulate their incubation more closely.

After three months gestation, between three and 15 perfect miniature lizards are born and are immediately self-sufficient. They move away to feed in the surrounding area, growing quickly and reaching maturity within a year, and grow quickly they must as a common lizard’s lifespan is only five or six years. Lizards are cold blooded, but use behaviour to regulate their temperature to within a few degrees of normal, which means they are normally warmer than the ambient temperature and not strictly speaking cold blooded, an old fashioned term, which has been replaced with the less catchy but more accurate “ectotherm”!

Now these little beauties are out and about, they can expect to get a few more unwelcome intrusions from me, I never fail to enjoy watching these creatures on our wonderful heathlands, and with luck I’ll come across an adder while I am reptile rambling too.

A less expected first cropped up in Seaton last week, and was not seen by myself, but I did get a frustrating text message while in an all-day meeting! A large tortoiseshell butterfly was seen amongst the ivy growing on the side of a Seaton house, luckily by someone who knew the significance of this sighting. Large tortoiseshells are a butterfly I wrote about in this column last summer, and are very rarely seen migrants from the continent, having been formally extinct in the UK for many years. This one, at this time of year is almost certainly an individual that has successfully over-wintered, a much unexpected occurrence. After last summer’s large tortoiseshell sighting a flurry of reports came my way of mis-identified small tortoiseshell butterflies. So here’s a quick guide to telling a very common British butterfly from its rarer continental cousin. Firstly check out the size and colour, if its about 4 or 5 centimetres and bright orange it’s a small ‘shell, if its closer to 8 centimetres and a darker brick brown, then it might be a large. Also, look on the forewing, and count the dark spots – if it’s a large T, then it will have four spots, a small ‘shell will have three.

Finally, while pootling about Holyford Woods, desperately trying to turn up a lesser-spotted woodpecker (and still no luck on that front) I saw a very early blossoming bluebell. There it was, all by itself, poking a small blue spike skywards. So it could be an early spring for bluebells this year, so get your skates on and make sure you don’t miss them in 2008.