After the significant snowfall and cold weather in late February and early March that held back the start of the 2018 amphibian season, put a break on the reptile emergence surveys and postponed our spring meeting, it has all come to a halt again on Sat 17th with cold weather and snowfall blanketing the county especially the upland areas in the Peak District. Toads had just started moving last week especially in southern Derbyshire, frogs were spawning across the county and some reptiles were basking and now it has all come to a halt. Hopefully it will be full speed ahead for frogs and toads later this coming week with mild & wet weather forecast, though it doesn't look good for the reptiles. However we have just purchased a further supply of toad migration road signs to add to our stock and they will be put up this week as soon as the snow has cleared.

The Group's Spring Meeting and AGM due to be held on Saturday 3rd March has been cancelled due to the heavy snow and ice. It will be re-arranged for later on this spring when the weather is better.

Derbyshire ARG orgnised a mornings practical conservation work for ecology staff from one of the various ecological consultancies in Derbyshire. Clearance of Typha and other vegetation was undertaken to two ponds created a decade ago for a small scale great crested newt mitigation but later passed onto the Wildlife Trust for management. No great crested newts have been found in regular surveys of the site but the ponds are important from frogs, toads and smooth newts. Discussion was held on site with the ecologists over their views on habitat management or improvements needed, value of great crested newt mitigation and whether it works. It is hoped to organise a few other conservation events for the company and any others who might be interested over the next year.

The Group ran a series of pond surveys this spring to monitor amphibians, particularly great crested newts but also palmate and smooth newts, in ponds in the White Peak area of the Peak District National Park. These involved 9 ponds on 3 different nature reserves belonging to the Derbyshire Wildlife Trust to add to their species monitoring data. Also we visited 6 ponds on two different farm holdings at the request of their owners and the Peak District National Park Authority farm advisers. In addition for the second year running we visited the pond near Hartington which had been randomly selected by Freshwater Habitats Trust for their PondNet great crested eDNA survey. The surveys were also advertised to people who had been on our great crested newt training courses so that they could gain more field experience in bottle trapping, torchlight surveys and eDNA water sampling.

Derbyshire ARG has been working with the Moors for the Future project to launch their Scales and Warts survey http://www.moorsforthefuture.org.uk/community-science/scales-and-warts the latest in their HLF funded Community Science surveys for the public. The launch was held at Hathersage on Thursday 6th April and 86 people attended to hear talks by Sarah Proctor, Community Science Project Manager for Moors for the Future, Kim Strawbridge from the Eastern Moors Partnership and Chris Monk from Derbyshire ARG. The survey joins existing surveys on bumblebees, butterflies, sphagnum & mosses, hares and others where people are asked to look out for just a few of the species that occur in the area. So far several hundred records have been received for the earlier surveys, the aim being to feed in data about species distribution that will be used to see how the ecosystems are coping and to determine how they will respond to climate change.

People can collect reply paid postcards to fill in and post back from Visitor Centres & other venues around the area, enter sightings via the surveys web form or download the free MOORWILD phone & tablet app available for both Apple & Android, links to download are on the MoorAPPS page where other apps for moss, plants and landscape are also available. Data about possible adder and common lizard distribution is particularly lacking from the northern & western Dark Peak and the South Pennines and it is hoped this survey will locate new sightings. The app and the web form also allow people to upload photos to aid in verification, which is particularly valuable for determining if a reported snake is an adder or a grass snake as these are often mis-identified.