NATURE TABLE EXPLORER

It had rained in the night and after some lovely blue sky this morning it rained some more. In a gap in the weather we set out on a Sunday morning walk.

This became a safari of snails ! The conditions must have been perfect for these molluscs they were everywhere.

They especially like to climb the trees . There was a lovely variety of colour on this safari.

Banded snails can vary from plain to fully striped. They can have up to five stripes on each whorl. They can also be pink, there were a large number of pink snails up the trees today.

There are two banded snails, the white lipped ( Cepaea hortensis ) which looking at these snails with their pale lips are what we saw today and Cepaea nemoralis which has a dark lip and is therefore sensibly called the dark lipped banded snail.

They are amazing the way that they can move through areas of small twigs as well as bark and trees. They were climbing any stem available.

I love this photo the air is so damp and the twigs so wet the snail has droplet if water decorating it’s shell.

There is a huge variety of these snails to look out for.

It felt very autumn like today the leaves are starting to turn colour. Looking forward to the colour changes as they progress.

As the leaves fall the lovely lichen again starts to take centre stage.

This was a great morning explore and definitely all about the snails.