Common Lizard Sighting

St Patrick is reputed to have driven all the snakes from the island of Ireland and indeed most people living here would assume that he drove out all reptiles (or rather that it is just too cold for them to survive).

In fact we do have a single reptile species , the common lizard, aka viviparous lizard or Lacerta vivipara but it is very rarely seen . Imagine my surprise then, on a recent visit to the Giant's Causeway, to see a little yellow-brown lizard running across the path in front of me and obligingly sitting still on the grass verge long enough for me to take the picture below!


A real 'hardy exotic' ! (...... well, 'native' actually)

Winter Snow

The main event of winter 2007/08 was the heavy snowfall on the evening of 3rd January 2008 which saw most of Belfast blanketed in 4 to 6 inches of snow in a couple of hours. This Chamaerops was pictured early in the night. By morning many of the lower fronds of Chamaerops and Trachycarpus were bent under the weight of snow and remained that way after the thaw.

Elsewhere the weigh of snow broke branches of trees and felled some small trees - very evident along the Lagan River where the towpath was blocked in places by fallen trees.