Snakes

Here in England we don't have snakes anything like the size of the river python, but we do have one true constrictor - the smooth snake.

This very rare animal only lives on lowland heaths, but unfortunately not on the lowland heaths around Kidderminster.

The smooth snake is an extremely secretive animal spending most of its time hiding in heather.

Due to this, the smooth snake was not discovered in England until almost 150 years ago.

This snake's preferred food is lizards, which it catches stealthily by slowly edging millimetre by millimetre towards basking lizards until it is only a few centimetres away.

It then strikes, grabbing the lizard in the middle of its body, throwing its coils around the prey and squeezing.

It would seem the power of this constriction is not great enough to kill the unlucky lizard as after several minutes of squeezing, it is eaten head first still alive.

While we in Wyre Forest are not fortunate enough to have Britain's only constricting snake we do have Britain's largest snake - the grass snake, which can reach a metre and a half.

The grass snake is odd when it comes to feeding as it neither constricts, like the smooth snake, nor, kills its prey with a poisonous bite, like the adder.

It just grabs its prey and tries to swallow it as quickly as it can, allowing powerful acidic digestive juices to polish off victims. Like the river python the grass snake prefers to hunt for food in the water and is an accomplished swimmer.

Grass snakes can often be seen swimming by undulating their bodies with their heads raised above the water. If the need arises they can easily dive beneath the water and remain there for up to an hour.

Grass snakes' prey consists of amphibians like frogs, toads, newts, small mammals and even fish.

Most of its victims are then swallowed alive, head first.

However, larger frogs are usually bitten and held by the legs and dragged onto land where the snake then spends several minutes forcing the frog down its throat backwards and also still alive.