Thursley Common (1 Viewer)

Hi,

I was delighted to see these lizards when walking along the boardwalk at Thursley Common today - anyone know what sort of lizards they are?? (could possibly be male & female)

This was a trip down memory lane - used to see loads of lizards as a young lad, but have seen hardly any in England for 40 years!!

There was also lots of youngsters - at least, I assume they were young... just like the dark one, but only a couple of inches long....I'm surprised they have young so early in the year....

At the spot where I saw these, there were lizards every couple of yards... mind you, the ground was pretty flooded, so may well have caused them to concentrate on the dry bits!!

The paler one looks like it's got a re-grown tail....


Rgds.... Ruby

Hi Ruby.

They are both Common Lizard. The stripey one is a pretty standard colour, the melanistic form is fairly unusual. The only other lizards in the Uk are Sand Lizard and Slow Worm. Sand Lizards are huge (well 15cm or so) and are much more colourful than the Common, with bright green sides and strange eye-shape markings. They are protected due to their rarity status, and very localised - only really seen on the heaths around Surrey and Hampshire, and Dorset. Keep an eye out at Thursley come to think of it, that would be a great sighting. Slow Worms, are, err....legless lizards.

Thanks Mike,

That's interesting.... the dark form were much more common, and the young were all dark in colour...

We used to have a cat that would catch slow worms.... she'd come prancing down the garden, looking pleased as punch, with 6" of slow worm hanging from each side of her mouth. Most times we could get them off of her and release them - not too much worse for wear on the face of it....

Hardy little blighters those slow worms......shame there doesn't seem to be as many as there used to be. Mind you, I haven't been out turning over rocks for a few years........

On the dark Common Lizard front, maybe they're not as unusual as I thought. Unless they are localised as well. Up here in the Highlands the Commons are quite colourful, and can be bright green and turquoise, so I presume there is a certain amount of variety.

Hi Ruby,

I used to spend hours when I was a kid trying to catch (with some success!) common lizards. They were all over the place on the downland behind my parents house in Kent. If I remember rightly all the young were dark in colour when around 1-2 inches long. I still see them occasionally at Cobham (lizards that is!) but they are no where near as common as they were then.

I also used to catch slow worms and I remember one occassion taking a slowworm home and putting it in a drawer in my bedroom as Mum and Dad were never too sure of the things I would bring home! Of course the slow worm got out and in the morning I was awoken by my Mums' screams of "Snake! Snake! There's a snake in my room!..." The poor, harmless slow worm had curled up under her dressing gown for a quiet kip and given her quite a shock! She soon calmed down once I told her what it was but I was banned from bringing stuff home without telling her from then on.

Happy days, thanks for reminding me.

Woody

Yep - It all comes back to me Woody...

Catching all sorts... slow worms, lizards & even adders and making little stockades out in the garden out of pieces of wood and hardboard etc.

Come down in the morning and they all would have escaped of course...

Shudder to think now about how many vengeful adders we must have had wandering around in our garden at one time or the other!!

BTW.... The trip to Thursley was also eventful in that I saw my first ever Crossbill...

Thursley is known to host Crossbills and another party of birders told me that they had just seen some and kindly pointed out where.

After a while, I could hear some birds calling and didn't recognise the call, so I was hoping they were CBs. Very elusive birds as I could see them moving about in a stand of pine trees, but as soon as they stopped moving, they seemed to have a knack of disappearing!!

After about 10 mins, a group of 4 birds flew to another tree a bit nearer, and I was lucky enough to see a fantastic male Crossbill posing in the sunshine through my scope - only for about 5 secs before it flew off, but an unmistakable and truly spectacular bird.

Also lucky enough to get a not-too-bad photo of a Dartford Warbler....

Ruby said:

anyone know what sort of lizards they are??

The paler one looks like it's got a re-grown tail....

Click to expand...

It's a small world Ruby, I was going to post the exact same question!
I parked up at Thursley late on thursday night so I could get out nice and early (did you see the blue & white VW camper van?).

Been to Thursley a few times before & have never seen any lizards, but friday the place was crawling with them! I too, managed a few photos, and was even going to ask about tail regrowth as a couple of them had stubs for tails.

Well done on the Crossbill, I was lucky enough to see & photograph some Linnets & Redstart, but as usual the Dartfords were a bit too quick for me.
My main reason for heading down there was to try and find a Cuckoo, but I only managed a view of its backside as it flew off.

Thursley can seem quite 'dead' sometimes, but it was a hive of activity on Friday, I'll have to get back down there this week. I've attached a couple of lizards, one of which seems to have lost his tail.

If it was you I nodded hello to as I was leaving then I can add you to my BirdForum members sightings year list (which would go up to 2!) :hi:

Dylan.

Hi Dylan,

Nice to hear from you, very nice lizard pictures....

I got to Thursley at about 10:30 and left about 12:30 - parked up in the Moat car-park...Can't say as I noticed a camper van, but I am not the most observant (bit of a handicap for a birder!!)

Possible we may have bumped into one another - I just did a circuit of 'pine alley' and did say hello to 20+ birders and dog-walkers when I was there... I was thinking that the place must be like Picadilly Circus on a nice sunny weekend. I was wearing a blue and black rain-jacket and (usually) a puzzled expression and lugging around approx 30Kg of assorted optical and camera gear!! My pic is up on the gallery...(as is the Dartford Warbler pic)

I have only been to Thursley 3 times and have done very well on 2 of those occasions - the 3rd time it was, as you say, pretty dead - which is something that I have heard from several people.

I have potential plans for an evening visit to look for Nightjar sometime soon....

Anyway...must go now... just off to Minsmere!!

Ruby, I headed off about 11.30 so probably nodded hello on my way to the moat car park. I'll have to look at the gallery to confirm the sighting

I enjoyed an evening listening to Nightjars at Thursley last year, will have to do it again this year.

Hope you enjoyed Minsmere!

Dylan.