An Unnatural History of Britain E-Book

Kevin Parr

• Herausgeber: Flint
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 402

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

'It wasn't just cats on the prowl. There were other animals that seemed too exotic or dangerous to go unnoticed and some were not simply surviving but thriving. Mammals such as the wild boar, once driven to extinction but now reestablished following escapes and illegal releases; a colony of yellow-tailed scorpions that have scuttled since Victorian times; wallabies, as far away from their native range as they could possibly get, bouncing around dale and moor … How exciting would it be to go and try to see some of them for myself?' Many are unaware that scorpions, Aesculapian snakes, eagle owls, wallabies and many more unusual non-native species are living and breeding in the British Isles – but here they are. In An Unnatural History of Britain nature writer Kevin Parr travels the length and breadth of the country seeking out these rare creatures and exploring the myths and folklore that have emerged around them along the way.

Leseprobe

All illustrations by Sue Parr.

Map by Ollie O’Brien and Sue Parr.

First published 2025

FLINT is an imprint of The History Press

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www.thehistorypress.co.uk

© Kevin Parr, 2025

The right of Kevin Parr to be identified as the Authorof this work has been asserted in accordance with theCopyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprintedor reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented,including photocopying and recording, or in any informationstorage or retrieval system, without the permission in writingfrom the Publishers.

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ISBN 978 1 80399 839 8

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CONTENTS

Introduction

1 The Camden Creature

2 The Green Dragon

3 Phantoms of the Forest

4 Pandemonium

5 Stung in the Tail

6 Ancestral Roots

7 The Blackdown Rabbit

8 Fang Albion

Epilogue

Bibliography

Acknowledgements

INTRODUCTION

THE LIGHT IS becoming elastic. Colours deaden but form holds and edges remain sharp, as though I am watching a film that is slowly slipping into black and white.

I have missed the long stretch of a Scottish summer’s evening almost as much as I’ve missed the mountains. It must be almost 11 p.m. and this landscape has an eerie quiet. A still punctured only by insects – grasshoppers fiddling from the long grasses around my feet, quietening into dusk, perhaps aware of their own conspicuousness.

I work up to the top edge of the meadow, rolling my soles as I tread, hoping to soften the sound of my footsteps. I match the quiet to limit my disturbance, but also because I want to keep my own ears sharp. Just in case. The forest edge is only 30 yards from me now and I keep a wary eye, the crowd of conifers darkening to an ink that suits the late hour. The malevolence might be conjured from my own mind, but it is not without basis. And I’ve never much liked the dark either. I do not fear it as I once did but the contrast between the warmth of the open land to my right and the black of the pines to my left is marked.

I am in the corner of the field now, only the topmost stones of the walls showing above the seedheads and sway of grasses. This is the spot. This is where Robert found the remains of one of his lambs, fully skinned and the bones cleaned to white. An animal just a few days from market so no spring leaper but as large as its mother. It wasn’t the first time he had lost one, but never before had he seen such a clinical method. This was not the work of a fox or dog, but something big enough to take down a 10-stone animal and then rasp the flesh clean off the bone.

Suddenly, my journey seems to have become rather serious. I’ve felt anxious before now, but primarily due to wariness of people than animals. I’ve skulked around some unlikely places over the past 12 months: dockyards and ancient forests after dark. I’ve visited central London and England’s last great wilderness. I have invariably been on my own and behaving in a manner that is entirely likely to attract the type of person that I would least likely wish to notice me. But here and now is another level of intensity. It is nearly dark and I am standing precisely where a large ruminant was killed and eaten by creature unknown. Except, the creature didn’t remain unknown; it was subsequently seen and followed. And the description of it was enough to prickle the back of my neck.

Ah! That is a reassurance. I may be skittish, but I do not have the fear. Robert described a crippling sense of terror, one that he had been worried to describe to me for fear of mockery. I had smiled, but only because I recognised that feeling. I had experienced it once myself, some 25 years ago now, and that was a shuddering, nausea-inducing sensation that I will never forget. I don’t feel anything like that now, though. That is a reassurance: my sixth sense will tell me if something really is out to get me.

I look back down towards the campsite to ground myself further. I can just make out two thin curls of smoke that snake against the trees of the peak beyond, before vanishing into the darkening grey of the sky. There remains a hint of a sunset, no longer a glow but a thin band of pale that sends my inner compass twirling. When I arrived here, I did so in the thick of a summer storm. There was no thunder, but the rain was too fast for the wipers and the clouds too low for the mountains. I had a map of the route saved in my memory, a vague imprint but enough to rely on. Except the turning to the campsite came rather earlier than expected, and I followed the signpost without consulting the mind-map. When I got here, I sat in the car for an hour, watching the northern sky and willing for a break in the rain. By the following morning, my sense of direction was wholly set, so it was more than odd to see the sun rising in the west. I had come in on a different road, approaching the campsite from the south and not the north, and I have been unable to shake it. Even this evening, as I cooked dinner beside the tent, it was the sun that was setting in the wrong place – not my internal compass. Peculiar too that it works fine as soon as I leave the campsite, but resets, incorrectly, the moment I return and lose my awareness. Perhaps I’ve unknowingly pitched up on a giant magnet.

What was that? In a moment my mind clears and my stomach knots. Footfall, from an animal. Heavy. And was that a snort? I haven’t quite gone full fear but I’ve been shocked into a state of hypervigilance. My eyes dart along the forest edge, straining to separate shape from shadow. But the foot-thuds come again, further to my right, beyond the second stone wall.

Imagination is a powerful thing, although I have learned over the past year or so that the unlikely or out of place should not always be dismissed due to feasibility. Mistaken identity, tricks of light and mind, or deliberate deception can explain the vast majority of peculiar sightings within the natural history of the British Isles. I fall foul myself (not of the deliberate deception part) fairly regularly: seeing what I want to see rather than what is actually there. A few days ago, having had a glorious crossing of paths with friends Skeff and Shona on the banks of Loch Lomond, I pointed out gleefully the wallaby I had spotted on the shore of Inchconnachan, only for the filter of hope that I had subconsciously fitted to my binoculars to lose its magical powers of persuasion. Having stayed perfectly still for nearly half an hour, it became clear I had been fooled by a wallaby-shaped rock. I wasn’t even looking at the right island.

Yet there are tangible threads running through the leaf litter, the strange and the alien, the reestablished and the unknown. Colonies of creatures that go unnoticed, tucked away in seaside resorts, London parks or even in plain sight. It’s been quite the journey to try to find some of them and make real the rumours and whispered secrets. Not least because the paths themselves have led me to different and unexpected destinations. Much like this moment: I have been out in the wilds of the Cairngorms looking for things that don’t want to be found, only to discover that there was a story waiting for me just yards from my tent.

Having immersed myself into the tales, it is no real surprise that I am slightly spooked by whatever is beyond that second stone wall. A list of likely sources would fill a page, with the unlikely, the creatures that I am trying to stop my imagination from conjuring, squeezed in as a footnote in a font so small it makes you squint. A footnote carries purpose, though. Often a little witticism or lateral thought. Or perhaps a caveat, an alternative theory or unlikely exception. And always there is an exception.

My heart thumps a little bit faster.

CHAPTER 1

THE CAMDEN CREATURE

‘DON’T LET THAT bloody thing get over this side!’

On the opposite bank of the canal is a woman, white-haired and wearing a long, pale turquoise coat that looks out of place in the heat of late May. Her demeanour is cheery, but there is an element of concern to her tone, and as she speaks, she turns slightly, lifting her shopping bags to act as a temporary shield between her and us.

‘There’ll be one or two along that bank,’ David replies with a reassuring smile, before lifting the snake slightly for her to get a better view. ‘But they are completely harmless, so don’t worry.’

The woman frowns before letting out a nervous laugh. ‘You’re pulling my leg!’ She shakes her head and turns, taking a few steps along the towpath before stopping still and looking over to us once again. ‘You are pulling my leg, aren’t you?’

Her confusion is understandable. This is likely a regular route for her, a sun-dappled stroll along the towpath to the supermarket across the park. A canal-side walk less bustle than the zigzag through the nearby streets. She would be used to seeing people – lots of people – and a huddled group of four men would not normally draw her attention. In fact, a group of four men would usually be best ignored and left to whatever it was that had prompted the huddle. Yet there was something different about our group. A mixture of age and dress if not diversity, and nothing to suggest that we had been strangers to one another a couple of hours ago. But our motive must have stood us apart from the usual assemblage. We weren’t sharing a spliff or drinking beer, but were gathered around a metre-long snake, taking photographs, no fear in our faces but wide eyes and smiles. A spectacle that would prickle the curiosity of most people, and, given that we were also, technically, in the grounds of a zoo, there was sufficient feasibility to our purpose and to the presence of a snake as to prompt comment. After all, the only time you would likely see a snake in central London would be within the confines of the capital’s zoological gardens. Even if this one wasn’t behind glass.

I smile my own reassurance as the woman puzzles for the second time. ‘It’s no danger to you at all,’ I offer, ‘they aren’t venomous and mostly eat rodents.’

A wry smile suggests that she isn’t convinced, so Jason picks up the thread.

‘They are sometimes called rat snakes,’ he explains, ‘because of their diet. But are better known as Aesculapian snakes. They’re non-venomous and no threat to people. And there has been a colony along this canal for 40 or 50 years.’

The woman stifles a laugh and turns as if to walk on before pausing once more. ‘How big do they get?’ she asks.

‘This is a typical size,’ David answers, ‘but they can grow as long as six feet.’

‘Six bloody feet!’ The woman snorts and rolls her head backwards before smiling. ‘You are having me on. Daft lot.’

She has heard enough, turning away from us and walking quickly along the towpath. Too wily to be teased by a group of south-bankers on the wind-up. We four turn our attention back to the matter that is literally in hand. A snake, long and slender, olive-green scales with a rusty edge that form a faint chequerboard pattern along the body. The unassuming, teddy-bear eyes remind me of a smooth snake, our rarest native reptile, as does the docile nature. An animal that seems content to be gawped at and posed with, although it may have lost the genetic triggers of fight or flight that individuals have within its native range. Even there, though, among the arboreal edgelands, it seems wholly reliant upon camouflage as a means of avoiding unwanted attention. With a bite that carries no venom and no great amount of pressure, staying still is probably safest. This, as Jason alluded, is an Aesculapian snake (Zamenis longissimus), familiar through much of southern and eastern Europe, and into Asia Minor, but absent further north. And this is the very thing that each of us had come to London to find.

It began with a puma and a newspaper article that I took at its word. After reading a single tabloid page, I could forget all that I had previously learned or read because it turned out the British countryside wasn’t a place where I could walk risk-free. We may have ridded it of wolves, bears and wild boar, but beneath our noses prowled other, perhaps even more dangerous beasts. It turned out that pumas and panthers were part of our fauna: not just singular escapees but living and breeding in extraordinary numbers. This was extraordinary, and it was in a newspaper – the Daily Mail – so it had to be true.

I was a typically impressionable teenager, greener than most in truth. But I had a new-found obsession and didn’t question the flimsy foundations on which it was based. The article suggested that there were as many as 2,000 ‘big cats’ living in the British Isles, and it was from that baseline that I related subsequent learnings. I began to devour rumour as fact and filtered information to hear only what supported my beliefs, not question them. I had always loved the natural world, but I loved even more the idea that there was a part that was secret and unknown, which the books and television programmes didn’t tell you about – didn’t seem to even know about.

After all, so much of our fauna can be neatly collated and classified, limited as we are by climate and geography. On an island where nowhere is further than 70 miles (113km) from the sea, habitats are contained. The great, open forests that covered three-quarters of the land mass following the last Ice Age have largely gone. Today, around 13 per cent of the UK is woodland, while agriculture accounts for around 70 per cent of land use, a necessity considering the ever-expanding human population but strangling the nature within. You can carry a concise guide to British birds, mammals or butterflies in a jacket pocket, while a native reptile guide might struggle to fill a pamphlet. Compared to the creatures that roar and claw elsewhere, the natural history of the British Isles feels tame. Our largest land carnivore is the badger and none of our insects or arachnids can deliver a bite or sting much beyond the pain delivered by a wasp or bee. As a child, with a burgeoning interest in nature, I found this deeply reassuring. There were plenty of wonders to look out for, but all could be safely observed without the need to carry a rifle or anti-venom. I would never have to tip out my boots or lift the toilet seat to check for deadly scorpions or spiders, nor would I draw lots to see who would walk last through the territory of a man-eating tiger. Wildlife elsewhere in the world sounded extraordinary, but terrifying. People got eaten by snakes, bears and sharks, there were bats that suckled blood, crocodiles that brought down wildebeest. Hippopotamuses rampaged, rhinos charged, wolves howled. There was even an eel that could electrocute you. It came as a relief to be living on this little island, where I could develop an interest without fearing for my life.

That is, no doubt, why the big-cat article grabbed me. I was aware of wisht hounds and Loch Ness monsters, but this was beyond the mythic. It contradicted all I had previously learned and by embracing it, I was taking control of something I hadn’t realised I need to control. I developed a mild sense of hypervigilance to stories of the exotic or unusual, especially those creatures that seemed somehow to be existing outside of general knowledge. Plenty of whispers proved either baseless, like the pack of timber wolves said to be prowling Northumberland, or misinformed, like the ‘sudden’ plague of false widow spiders, a moniker applied to half a dozen species, some of which are native to the UK. However, there were also some fascinations. The more I read, and the better I got to know these islands, so the notion of 2,000 pumas and leopards became increasingly stretched. An environment so heavily populated and extensively managed will struggle to conceal too many secrets. Yet I heard accounts from people I trusted and experienced a couple of moments of my own. Always there has been enough to prevent rational application from rolling into full-blown cynicism (more of mystery cats a little later, though). And it wasn’t just cats on the prowl. There were other animals that seemed too exotic or dangerous to go unnoticed and some were not simply surviving but thriving. Mammals such as the wild boar, once driven to extinction but now reestablished following escapes and illegal releases; a colony of yellow-tailed scorpions that have scuttled since Victorian times; wallabies, as far away from their native range as they could possibly get, bouncing around dale and moor.

How exciting would it be to go and try to see some of them for myself? Draw up a list and get out there looking. They need to be naturalised to some degree, not singular oddities that have slipped an aviary or hitched a ride on a cargo ship. Established then, breeding. That way I can explore the places to which they are adapting. Above all, they have to be a little bit fantastical. The type of beast that would have left my childhood self dumbfounded and my adult self open-mouthed.

But where to begin? It’s got to be snakes, surely? It always has to be snakes …

Back in 2001, a study at the Karolinska Institute and Hospital in Stockholm, Sweden, determined that human fear of snakes and spiders is evolutionary. By showing various images to subjects and then recording their reaction times, psychologists found that animals which are common sources of phobia would ‘pop out’, whereas the more benign creatures would take longer to see. Moreover, those subjects tested who already had a fear or phobia would spot the snakes and spiders more quickly than those who did not. Their brains, it would seem, were programmed to filter potential danger whenever confronted by a new or unknown scene.

This instinctual response could, it was suggested, be linked back to pre-human history. To a time when mammals first evolved in a world dominated by reptiles and invertebrates, when only the sharpest eyes and minds would dodge the myriad dangers that existed.

It is an interesting notion, one supported in part by the number of people believed to suffer from phobias. And although ophidiophobia (the fear of snakes) is both less known and widespread than arachnophobia (the fear of spiders), a 2023 YouGov poll found that 42 per cent of the British public had a fear of snakes. This, despite the fact that we have only three native species of which only one, the adder, is venomous, and that many people, possibly more than admit to having a fear, will likely go a lifetime without encountering a snake in the wild within the UK.

Perhaps there is a foundational cause at work, borne from representation and portrayal. Ever since Adam and Eve were deceived by a snake in the Garden of Eden, serpents have been depicted as cunning, sly and evil. The Epic of Gilgamesh was a story written long before any Biblical tales were inscribed, with tablet remains dating back to the thirteenth century BC having been found in what was once Mesopotamia. The titular character finds a plant at the bottom of the sea that it is said will return him to youth but having determined to test it first on an old man, the plant is stolen by a serpent as Gilgamesh bathes, and his wish for immortality is dashed. As the snake departs, it sloughs its skin, perhaps mocking Gilgamesh in the process. The act of skin-shedding has long been associated with rebirth, so the serpent, having scuppered Gilgamesh’s plan for eternal life, shows him just how it is done.

The snake is so often the bad guy. William Shakespeare cast the serpent as such, as the incarnation of Claudius’s deceit in Hamlet, or to emphasise the hidden threat of Banquo in Macbeth. From the serpents that writhed on the head of Medusa, to Nagini, Voldemort’s deadly pet in the Harry Potter series, the snake finds itself playing a role of malevolence. So much so that a preconception is likely burned into the human psyche from modern culture as much as evolutionary instinct. Artistic depiction will certainly spark subconscious reinforcement to a schema already engrained.

So the reaction of the woman beside the Regent’s Canal is possibly inevitable. It is not unreasonable to suggest that a person previously unaware of the existence of a colony of Aesculapian snakes on their doorstep would not respond positively when presented, literally, with the evidence. Yet it needn’t be so. Not just because there would be no direct threat (other than through shock or panic), but also because positive imagery tends to get overlooked – no matter how ubiquitous.

More than eighty health or medicine organisations in the world use an image of a snake entwined around a staff as part of their logo. The symbol is inspired by the Greek god Asclepius, son of Apollo and Coronis. He was tutored in medicine through formal education but furthered his knowledge by heeding the words and actions of a snake. His skills as a healer became so proficient that he was able to perform resurrections, a feat that angered Hades, king of the Underworld. Hades feared that the work of Asclepius might see him lose too many of his ‘guests’, and Zeus, the supreme god, shared his concerns, striking Asclepius down with a thunderbolt. This angered Apollo, whose rage saw him banished from Olympus and ordered to spend a year as a mortal on Earth. On his return, however, Apollo convinced Zeus to resurrect Asclepius who then took his place in Olympus as a god of medicine, with his rod, a staff with a snake entwined, becoming recognised as a symbol of healing.

Asclepius’s abilities were famed beyond the Grecian realm, and when a plague ravaged Rome during the early part of the third century BC, a delegation of Elders was sent to Epidaurus, south-west of Athens across the Saronic Gulf, to visit the Sanctuary of Asclepius. There they hoped to secure a statue of the god to take back to Rome where it might deliver respite from the plague. Instead, on arrival, a snake slithered from the sanctuary and on to the ship. The Romans took this to be a positive omen – perhaps the snake might even have been an incarnation of Asclepius himself – so they headed back west with their unexpected passenger safely hidden onboard.

As they worked up the River Tiber towards the heart of Rome, the snake slipped from the ship and disappeared in the undergrowth of an island, a move determined to be symbolic. It was decreed that a temple to Asclepius be built upon the Isola Tiberina, a project that, when completed, saw the plague that had blighted the city subside.

The stock of Asclepius – or Aesculapius as the Romans called him – understandably swelled, and the snake that bore his healing might was much revered. As the Roman Empire expanded, temples of healing were built in the towns and lands newly conquered. To each of these, snakes contained within earthenware pots would be taken and released, enabling the species to expand its own range. That the snakes, if they survived, would keep a check on rodent numbers, themselves potential carriers of disease or parasites, meant that they would indeed fulfil their intended role, if not in the manner expected.

Had we the time, then relating the story of Asclepius to the woman and explaining how his legend led to the naming of this snake might create a deeper impression. It is, after all, a really good story. Most etymological tales, even the more ingenious, can be related in brief. But the Aesculapian snake requires a deep breath and undivided audience attention. A skilled storyteller could probably tease it out long enough to be worthy of applause, and this for an animal that might not appear particularly remarkable. It is a large snake within the compass of its range, although it has length rather than weight. A 2m (79in) specimen could coil itself into a large saucepan or sneak down a rat hole without brushing the sides. Its scales are not strongly patterned and the colour, though variable, is invariably soft. Greens and browns that aid camouflage, an animal that is quite happy to tuck up and not present itself.

A colony of Aesculapian snakes has been quietly existing in north-central London for at least half a century. Could, perhaps, this animal be a remnant of the Roman occupation of England? There are, after all, isolated pockets of Aesculapian snakes in western Germany, the north of the Czech Republic, Turkey and Iran, all of which are naturalised populations likely established after the construction of Roman temples. It is probable that the Romans brought snakes to British shores, to release at places of healing. They brought plenty else with them, as we will consider later in the book, so why not a pot or two of serpents?

The British climate has not long been so forgiving as it is in the twenty-first century, however. The mild winters that have encouraged the spread of non-migratory warblers such as the Cetti’s and Dartford, or invertebrates like the wasp spider, are a recent pattern. The Little Ice Age, which saw Frost Fairs on a frozen River Thames in London, only ended in the early nineteenth century. More recently, the winter of 1962–63 was famously brutal. Much of the British Isles became snowbound in December and it wasn’t until early March that the overnight temperature lifted above frost level. Cold winters are not necessarily a bad thing for reptiles, though. Providing that their chosen hibernacula is not too exposed, the steady cold is essential for keeping blood temperature low and slowing metabolism. Instead, cold, wet summers will have far greater impact on species such as the Aesculapian snake. Their body size means they require greater and longer exposure to the sun in order to maintain blood temperature. Their long, slender form is more suited to the climate of southern Europe with any climate-driven northerly spread checked ultimately by the sea.

An unsuitable climate also limits dispersal. With energy restricted, food source is ever more critical. A pioneering snake could travel to a new area but then be unable to hunt or might find food but have insufficient blood temperature to properly digest it. As a colony becomes increasingly isolated, so it risks an inbreeding depression. With no fresh genes to splice and prolong the line, the species will die out. If the Romans did bring Aesculapian snakes to the British Isles, then the likelihood that their offspring still slither is very close to zero. Despite this, there was sufficient chance for me to see one that I took a 3-hour train journey up to London to try to do so. So where had they come from?

Of those three native species of snake that 42 per cent of the British public fear, it was the adder (Vipera berus) that first sparked my own ophiological interest. My schoolbooks were full of pictures and words about the adder, long before I ever saw one. It was, looking back, a fascination borne out of respect. I had a love of the natural world but also a fear of some of the snapping, stinging, biting creatures that I read about. But almost all lived in far-off places, and discovering that I lived on an island, safely marooned from tigers, cobras and red-backed spiders, was a glorious relief. There remained, however, the adder. A snake whose venom could, potentially, do me some serious harm. Therefore, in the same manner that I quietly cheered on Wolverhampton Wanderers in the 1980 League Cup Final (my 6-year-old self believed it prudent to placate the ‘Wolves’), I felt that if I showed deference to the adder then it might not bite me.

It was a ploy that has worked until now. I cannot vouch for the adder’s awareness of my childhood strategy, but that reverence for a creature that might do me harm has matured into adulthood idolatry. The adder is one of my absolute favourite animals and I spend hours searching and studying, soft in movement so as to cause the snake no alarm rather than concern for my own protection. Their shy, docile nature is at odds with the cheap tabloid sensationalism that trumpets every summer when a pet or person puts a nose or sandaled foot in the wrong place. Many people will feel relief to know that the adder is in decline, but they are a species on the brink. Loss of habitat has seen the adder vanish from much of lowland Britain, and those colonies that remain face inbreeding depression. Many, seemingly reliable, sites have little or no recruitment, but instead an aging population that time will inevitably gather in.

The scrub and woodland edges on which adders are so dependent are too often tidied away. These are places that thrive on neglect, but modern humankind is a creature that likes order, control and neat lines. It is a curious paradox that the lowland heaths on which our rarest snake, the smooth snake (Coronella austriaca), is almost exclusively found are better protected as an identifiable habitat than the tangle of thorn and bramble that might support an adder. The adder does occur on heathland but is outnumbered in areas where smooth snakes occur, in part because of the smooth snake’s diet (largely other reptiles). The smooth snake rarely basks in direct sunlight but lies beneath refugia and raises blood temperature through contact with the vegetation or inanimate structure, also spending a large proportion of its life underground. This means that it is less vulnerable to predation and disturbance, allowing it to dominate the fragments of sandy heathland in which it thrives.

Our third snake species is our largest, the grass snake (Natrix helvetica). A lover of water and eater of amphibians, the grass snake’s size and the fact that it is ovoviviparous, egg-laying, means it is limited in range by the climate, being rarely encountered north of Hadrian’s Wall. It is more adaptable, in terms of habitat, than the adder and smooth snake and certainly more pioneering. As a strong swimmer, the grass snake is able to move around wetland areas, perhaps able to find fresh genes and food sources while the other species coil and wait for the population collapse.

Dorset, my home county for the last 14 years, holds good numbers of all three species. We have grass snakes, not just on the doorstep, but in the house itself on occasion, and adders within a long walk or short car-ride. The lowland heaths that hold smooth snakes are a little further away and as the species is protected under several pieces of legislation, they can only be looked for under licence.

I spend a lot of time, especially in spring, taking the short car-ride to a local common where I have got to know the adders fairly well, despite the fact that on my first ever visit I met a reserve warden who insisted there were no adders on site. They are far from abundant, but there are enough adders to make me wonder quite how that warden had overlooked them. I began to recognise individuals and also behavioural traits that varied from one to another. Some snakes would be sensitive to my presence, slipping away the moment I got too close (I don’t like to disturb them at all if possible, so I learned to find my own respectful boundaries), whereas one or two were incredibly tolerant. One female became so familiar to my chemical make-up that on ‘tasting’, my presence would become wholly indifferent. I could sit beside her and even gently touch her without causing any alarm. In fact, by the cool of late autumn, when I popped to her basking spot beside a narrow strut of silver birch, twice she nudged up against my thigh, seemingly to engage my body heat.

Such individualism might not be expected in cold blood. An animal that is so dependent upon, and reactive to, the conditions lent by its immediate environment would, conceivably, be more predictable in behaviour than a warm-blooded counterpart. It is certainly a preconception of my own, borne largely from experiences of my angling life. Learning to read the water, and the impact that certain conditions might have on the fish, is an angler’s most subtle weapon. Applying a similar logic to reptiles has some basis, especially when looking for emerging animals in early spring, but there are factors that I hadn’t considered. Non-predatory fish tend to shoal up from birth and remain with similar year class fish (of their own species) for as long as there are mates with which to shoal. The old, solitary fish have been wily and lucky enough to outlive their shoal-mates but have survived to that point through safety in numbers. Snakes must be more reliant upon camouflage and stealth, to hunt and avoid being hunted, and so are immediately independent, thinking for themselves rather than having the group-thought of a shoal.

Two autumns ago, I watched this pattern directly unfold. September brought a blast of heat from the south, the jet stream settling somewhere north of Shetland and pulling warmth up from the Sahara. The communal compost heap, 46m (50 yards) or so from our back gate, positively baked, and after a damp summer, the grass snake eggs within went through a rapid incubation. I have not before witnessed such an emergence, but an early morning check towards the end of the month saw at least fifty fresh hatchlings across the heap. Their number dwindled daily, and although some were likely being picked off by predators, it was interesting to follow their dispersal. A couple turned up in our garden, beneath a mat that had been laid out to dry. At least a dozen found their way to a single small square of discarded roof-felt, whereas others appeared under lumps of bark and a scrap of polythene. Many simply stayed put, presumably nosing their way back into the compost as the nights began to bite. Although such a number would have been produced by several different snakes, there seemed to be more than genetics prompting subsequent movements. The parent snakes were likely all hatched in the same pile, but would also have lived their own lives since, returning to that place to lay eggs where they knew they might incubate.

Individual thinking (perhaps ‘action’ is a more appropriate term) is a vital part of evolution, and something that we can probably never fully understand. What prompts a brown trout to swim downstream, acclimatise to saltwater, grow fat on a marine diet before returning to freshwater to breed, yet it is genetically identical to a sibling that remained in the same pool it was spawned in? Every winter come records of swallows, perhaps the ultimate avian season-signaller, staying later or not leaving at all, reflecting our softening winters. These are likely birds that don’t have the correct genetic wiring that prompts migration and are instead surviving beyond the point when historically they would have been clobbered by the cold. Or, rather like the blackcaps that winter in the British Isles having bred in central Europe or Scandinavia, these are birds that have travelled as far as they feel compelled, stopping where conditions offer favour. Evolution through luck rather than deliberate thought. Similar drivers would have prompted the varied dispersal of the juvenile grass snakes, and had there not been the unusually large number, then I would not have noticed or, more pertinently, looked to see where they slithered off to. Such profligacy also offered me a sense of what would once have been the norm.

Victorian naturalist John George Wood wrote of a visit to a renowned ‘viper spot’ in Hampshire where ‘it was hardly possible to take half a dozen steps without seeing one or two Vipers gliding away’. He also documented a grass snake ‘slaughter’ on a farm in Wales, where, in October 1878, having spotted snakes in a manure heap, ‘no less than 352 snakes in all were killed, and thousands of eggs, in clusters like bunches of grapes, were destroyed’. Many of these would have been juveniles such as I had witnessed, but with so many unhatched eggs this suggests a substantial local population, particularly given that the manure heap would have, presumably, been a temporary fixture – piled between production and spread. While anecdotal evidence cannot be relied upon as a true scientific barometer, it has value, and the huge loss of reptile-friendly habitat that has occurred over the last 150 years would add further weight to the notion of snakes being far more familiar than they are today.

Every adventure should start with a train journey. Maybe a heroic, moustachioed dash back to London from Istanbul on a second-class ticket, solving a snowbound murder on the way. Or on a train out of London, to southern Italy, perhaps, there to find a ferry across the Mediterranean and a race around the world, all because of a drunken bet the evening before in the Reform Club.

I might be over-selling myself. This morning’s 09.33 from Dorchester South to Waterloo probably doesn’t carry quite the same weight, especially as I boarded not with a suitcase or suit, but in shorts and flip-flops, with a foil-wrapped sandwich (and everything else I might need) in my shoulder bag. There was some jeopardy, though, such as meeting strangers in a place I’ve never been, while the pre-paid ticket means I have only one return journey option, unless I cough up a commuter surcharge.

Most vital though was that this day trip to London worked. Success could be represented within quite a broad bracket, but were today a disaster then the whole project would fall flat on its face.

I leant back in my seat and closed my eyes to the thought. The gentle bounce of the carriage and that morning sunshine were divine, warming my skin through the window and nudging me into a drift. I was about to open my notebook and start scribbling, but perhaps I had time for a short little snooze in the sun. Just 10 minutes.

Discipline, Kev. Discipline. I blinked myself awake and reached for my pen, before the landscape pulled me straight out of the window. The meander of the lower Frome, glistening like molten metal in the bright sun, the meadowlands rich in green. Beyond, the Purbeck Hills and scraps of heathland. Ah yes, that is a habitat I must give mention to.

Although Dorset’s Great Heath is now fractured, smothered beneath afforestation, agriculture and development, those areas that remain are well protected and, as I earlier mentioned, the smooth snake is often the dominant snake species. Their teddy-bear eyes, small size and docile demeanour belie a predator happy to include other, juvenile, snakes in its diet. They are best monitored through the use of artificial refugia, corrugated iron squares or rubber mats which, if found, should be left unturned unless you are a monitor and carry a licence. This was something I received training to obtain, during which I realised how frequent smooth snakes might be, albeit in extremely local occurrence. One count found ten individuals from twenty ‘tins’ on a cool, wet and windy day when no other reptiles (and little else for that matter) showed a scale. Such abundance is deceptive, of course. Being isolated through fragmentation, a colony could be hugely impacted by a single heath fire or disturbance, leaving too few to genetically sustain. Reintroduction programmes (by the Amphibian and Reptile Conservation Trust, the Amphibian and Reptile Groups of the UK and others) are helping to allay this threat, while there may, perhaps, be small numbers as yet undiscovered.

The reason I was trained and licensed followed one such discovery on my local common. I had volunteered to do some reptile monitoring and one day stumbled upon a smooth snake. It was actually my second sighting on the site, which is both an unfamiliar habitat for the species and at least 15 miles (24km) from any known colony. My first sighting was indeterminable, a good view but brief, as it vanished into a heat-created crack in the earth. The second specimen (it looked far lighter in colour and slightly smaller than the first) I found I was able to photograph and subsequently see again. It even left a freshly sloughed skin for me to take away and add to the evidence of its discovery. I kept it quiet, of course, save for the wildlife bodies that would have an interest, but in order to continue the surveying I would now need to be licensed.

There are several theories as to where and why these smooth snakes may have originated, and I (nor anyone else, as far as I am aware) have had no encounters since, but the lesson I learned in the context of unnatural history was that even the most unlikely might just be possible – that footnote at the bottom of the page. Probability is a useful guide and a good base from where to start, but it is not absolute. There are always new things to be found and new behaviours to be understood. We do not know all there is to know, and cannot when we consider evolution and the trappings of preconception or theory undermined. Our species is also very good at interfering, forcing change or adaption and throwing new, random numbers into the equation. Which is one reason why animals turn up in places they are not supposed to be.

A survey by UK Pet Food in 2023 found that as many as 420,000 snakes are kept as pets in the UK. Given that amount, it is no surprise that some will find their way into the wider world. The RSPCA recorded 1,219 reports of escaped pet snakes in 2021, and it is not unreasonable to speculate that far more incidents go unreported. Added to this are those animals deliberately released, pets that have become too big, too expensive or simply unwanted. Many will be recovered of course, especially the larger, more conspicuous animals. The 3.6m (12ft) long yellow python found slithering down a street in West Bromwich in September 2023 being a good example – a snake of that size tends not to go unnoticed. Of those escapees that remain at large, the vast majority will perish, succumbing to the cold, a lack of food (exacerbated by a lack of hunting instinct), deliberate killing or predation. Survival for some is possible, though, especially in areas of forgiving habitat.

The corn snake (Pantherophis guttatus), native to the south-eastern United States, is popularly kept as a pet. They are relatively small, adults typically measure a metre (3ft 3in) or so in length, and are non-venomous, with a basic vivarium set-up (with occupant) starting at around £150. In their natural range they are found as far north as New Jersey, where the climate, although more seasonally extreme, is not too dissimilar to the southern parts of the British Isles. There is, then, a feasibility to the species’ survival as a naturalised species in the UK, with plenty of anecdotal evidence to support the possibility. Their natural diet of small rodents, amphibians, bird eggs and chicks is well met, and the popularity and accessibility of the corn snake to pet owners would suggest a large proportion of escaped or released animals would be of this species. A ‘nature reserve’ in Kent appears to offer the most substantial chance of an encounter with a feral corn snake, but there is, for now at least, no evidence of breeding. In his book The Naturalised Animals of Britain and Ireland, Christopher Lever also mentions common garter snake (Thamnophis sirtalis), dice snake (Natrix tessellata) and king snake species (Lampropeltis spp) as having been encountered in the wild but without breeding record. Online rumours of a colony of grey rat snake (Pantherophis spiloides) in Thetford Forest, East Anglia, although earnestly presented, do not seem to have any depth, but while all such tales might be easily dismissed, the lack of substantiation might be due to suppression. A concern for the welfare of the animals, being either legally removed, euthanised or excessively disturbed, superseding any wish to prove existence. The same dilemma I faced having found smooth snakes on my local common; they shouldn’t be there but revealing them could lead to their demise.

Maintaining a low profile is easier in some places than others though, and the two colonies of Aesculapian snakes in the British Isles are not best situated for discretion. In Colwyn Bay, North Wales, Aesculapian snakes are familiar as visitors to gardens and, rather sadly, as road casualties. Tarmac warms nicely in direct sunlight and, to an animal genetically evolved to suit warmer climes, will draw cold blood like a magnet. At least three adult snakes were found run over on the roads of Colwyn Bay in a single week in 2023, a significant number given that there are likely fewer than 100 mature snakes within the population. Sightings are most frequent within and around the grounds of the Welsh Mountain Zoo, something that is not simply coincidence. A gravid female is believed to have escaped from the zoo in the early 1970s, although there is suggestion that the enduring nature of the colony points to a larger initial gene pool.

The zoology department at Bangor University undertook a study of the Colwyn Bay colony, capturing twenty-one specimens and implanting them with radio transmitters so that they might be tracked. For two summers, students followed the snakes’ movements enabling them to understand the behaviours that allow the animals to survive in a climate and environment so detached from their natural range. The results were published in February 2025. It seems that in order to adapt and survive, the Aesculapian snakes make use of the local buildings, hibernating in loft space and wall cavities, but also using such spots to tuck up during spells of inclement weather. The human residents are quite tolerant of the snakes, perhaps viewing them as preferable to rodents that the serpents might prey upon. Also, and this is a pattern that will recur throughout my travels, people are rather proud of them – they have affection for these exotic outlanders.

Although numbers of both the Colwyn Bay and London populations are difficult to determine, the current, anecdotal evidence might point to more likely longevity within the Welsh colony. There is also an ethical issue of what, if anything, should be done about them and at what point something might have to be done. They remain a non-native species and while they survive in small numbers their impact on local ecology is likely to be slight. Given that one of the transmitters recovered by the Bangor University study group was 30m (100ft) up a tree and next to a buzzard nest, the Aesculapian snakes would appear to be feeding predators that perch above them in the food pyramid. No great surprise considering the buzzard’s wide-ranging diet and their partiality to grass snakes where that species flourishes; it’s also a reassurance that their numbers might be kept in check ‘naturally’.

The London snakes will no doubt make use of buildings for hibernation and shelter, although their presence has brought a sometimes more sensationalist response. Headlines tend toward the dramatic, with ‘The Camden Creature’ a handy and oft-repeated alliteration. Suggestive of something considerably more fierce than the animal to which it is afforded, but a useful pairing for me to type into a search engine and find a clutch of potential research information. Snake sightings along the banks of the Regent’s Canal between Camden Lock and London Zoo dated back many decades, although unlike in North Wales, the proximity to the zoo was coincidence rather than an origination. Aesculapian snakes have never been kept as zoo exhibits; instead, theories as to where these animals came from point either to a bankrupt pet shop turning out stock, or, more popularly, an escape from a long defunct Inner London Education Facility.