RAUK - Archived Forum - Posts by brent:

I am a degree student studying Wildlife management and am planning a reptile project for the summer. I will be surveying reptiles (both common lizards and slow-worms) on a site and comparing my findings to data recorded on another site.I will be looking for data that suggests the effect of grazing on reptile populations with the intention of using this to decide on future management techniques. As i am new to this i was hoping to get some helpful hints about the best methods to use. I have both roofing felt and "tins" at my disposal.

Firstly to get a true representative sample ( numbers of animals under each tin per lift compared with the same from the other site) would i be right to suggest gridding out my site on a map and randomly selecting places to put down the tins? How often should i lift the tins in a day?, i was planning to do the survey work from about mid july onward...does that sound right?

if anyone can help me with answers to these questions or links to helpful information i would be greatful.

brent

Thanks for the thoughts, i will go away and think about these questions and will no doubt be back on this forum with some more.

Brent

 Hi,

I have been doing a common lizard project and to add to my discussion i was hoping that someone might be able to tell me how far or large an area a common lizard will travel to find food and basking sites? i realise this will vary from site to site but i did mine on a typical heath dominated by purple moor grass.

Also if anyone is interested i have done a comparison to see if the lizards preferred one material type over the other (Corrugated iron and roofing felt) but there seems to be no significant preference even though, with the help of data loggers, i have got some quite good comparisons in terms of the materials thermal properties.

and finally,It would seem that the lizards seen basking and the lizards seen on my encounter surveys showed very different peaks in the temperatures at which they were active, perhaps suggesting that the ones seen on the encouter surveys were foraging after basking? has anyone else seen this difference in the activities... picked up by the different methods?

thanks

Brent