Easter Eggs on Hampstead Heath
This Easter, we bring you some eggciting wildlife news from across our green spaces. Spring is a busy time of year for us on the Heath, with our wildlife monitoring programmes starting again for the summer season. Heath Hands staff and volunteers survey butterflies, dragonflies and grass snakes and conduct our Natures Calendar survey. Learn more about our ecological surveys here.
Young snake on compost heap
Adult grass snake on Hampstead Heath
Hampstead Heath is home to a population of grass snakes (the closest to central London). Grass Snakes are Britain’s largest native land reptile. Heath Hands have been monitoring their numbers since 2011.
Grass snakes are the only British snake to lays eggs (Adders and Smooth Snakes give birth to live young). The females lay their eggs in piles of rotting vegetation - or even better, a compost pile or manure heap - where the heat from the decomposing organic matter will incubate the eggs. We try to give the snakes a helping hand on the Heath by making piles of hay (cut from the meadows). As part of our efforts to monitor their movements and population, we dig through the old piles to look for eggs. This week Heath Hands staff and volunteers found around 40 eggs!
Heath Hands staff member Rory looking very eggcited
Grass snake eggs
This April, Heath Hands have teamed up with the staff at Golders Hill Zoo to set up another grass snake survey in Golders Hill Park. We hope to discover whether the population has spread to the more western areas of the Heath.
Setting up a new grass snake transect in Golders Hill Park
