
No, it is not a snake, but actually a slow-worm (aka blindworm, or in German a Blindschleiche), a harmless, legless, lizard. When you are deep in the undergrowth pulling up grass by hand and you grab one though, the instinctive reaction is an involuntary yelp!
First I found one very long slow-worm (about half a metre long) in a burrow amongst the roots. I took it away from the garden and found it somewhere to live in the woods. When handling it, I found the skin smooth, dry and cold. It had very strong muscles and writhed under my grasp but it didn't try to bite me.
Subsequently I found another four smaller (about 20cm) ones. I guess the large one was the mother, and these were her off-spring. I let the smaller ones wriggle off to find somewhere safer from the aggressive weeding.
My Beloved was horrified, and now I have to do all the digging in the garden in case there are more! I think they are kind of cute though, with blinking eyes (a sign that they are not snakes, which have lidless eyes) and a flickering, forked tongue.
They aren't the only unexpected wildlife we've found in the garden; earlier in the year we were strimming a hummock of incalcitrant grass back and found a hibernating hedgehog. We moved it to a snug place under a pile of cut-down fir-tree branches, and now he is not there so hopefully he survived the Winter and has moved on.
It might still be like a jungle out there, but it is a very colourful one. We have a wonderful display from the lilac trees, which also smell heavenly:

We also have some tropical-looking butterflies visiting the garden now:

And some strange-looking bugs:

Not that the cats are bothered; they are just enjoying the sun (like Tosca here)!

It turns out that the strange-looking bug is called a Grüne Stinkwanze, or green stink bug.
ReplyDeleteAnd apparently they do excrete a foul-smelling liquid if mis-handled. Stay away cats, this is not a toy!