Amphibians and Reptiles
Amphibian and Reptile Group's Record Pool
Type: Sightings and Surveys
Location: UK wide with projects covering specific areas
Season/duration: all year (sightings)
Time needed: project dependant
Experience needed: project dependant
Description: Record sightings of frogs, toads, newts, slow worms, lizards and snakes by uploading a photo, time, location and other relevant information. Check out what projects ARG are running in your area.
Type: survey
Location: UK wide
Season/duration: all year
Time needed: no time restrictions (time spent must be recorded)
Experience needed: none
Description: Spend some time recording the amphibians and reptiles in your garden. Maybe you have a pond with frogs! Or maybe you think there are no amphibians and reptiles in your garden but if you carefully turn over rocks and search the nooks and crannies of your garden, you might be surprised by what you find.
Grass Snakes in Scotland
Type: Record a sighting
Location: Scotland
Description: Until 2010 it was believed there were no grass snakes in Scotland, after three confirmed sightings and more unconfirmed sightings ARG UK and other conservation organisations decided more research needs to be done on grass snakes in Scotland. If you spot one try to take some photos and note down the species, time of sighting, the location (as precise as you can) the habitat you find it in and the distance from livestock and distance from nearest village/town/city.
Toads on Roads
Type: join a volunteer group
Location: toad migration sites across the UK
Season/duration: beginning any time between late January to late March depending on location, lasts as long as there are toads crossing your migration site
Time needed: evenings/nights during toad migration season
Experience needed: patrollers from your group will be able to show you the ropes, and lots of info on the froglife website
Description: help toads cross the road! Common toads return to the same ancestral breeding ponds every year, this sometimes means they have to cross roads that have been built on their path. Froglife has a map of toad migration sites across the UK and wether there is an active group at that site, maybe there's a site no is looking after and you can start a new toad patrol!