During Scout Community Week the 1st Barcombe Beaver Scouts spent an evening installing reptile shelters around the campsite to encourage reptiles to bask on warm stones in the sun. We are keen to encourage a wide range of species into the camping areas and the reptile shelters will encourage species such as slow worms, grass snakes, and even adders, which we occasionally see on the edges of the site, and particularly along the dismantled railway track that borders the camping meadow.
We broke up a few old paving slabs and set them on a sheet of black myplex and surrounded this with some wood chip mulch that will slowly rot down and provide some cover for the animals as they set off hunting once they have warmed up their blood.
Grass snakes are the biggest of the reptiles and they are very at home in water so the ponds around the Secret Campsite are a useful extra habitat for them to enjoy.
Adders are our only poisonous snake but they are secretive and rarely seen, quickly disappearing at the slightest sound.
Slow worms are a legless lizard and we often find them in the compost heaps and any decomposing vegetation around the campsite
The Secret Campsite has lots of interesting and unusual wildlife around our site near Lewes in East Sussex, and we have great habitats nearby on the Ashdown Forest and The South Downs, both of which are just a few miles away. We have a wildlife event taking place here on July 10th and 11th with Michael Blencowe from Sussex Wildlife Trust searching for The Purple Emperor as well as a night walk with bat detectors and moth traps
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