How to spot grass snakes

Yesterday afternoon I spotted three grass snakes; two in New England wood, Cuckfield and one on the High Weald Landscape Trail west of the town.

Usually grass snakes will slip away before you get a chance to see them.  However, on this occasion I was on  my own and often standing still looking for birds and listening to their songs.  There was a breeze but on each occasion I heard a very faint rustling of the undergrowth that was unlikely to be the wind.  I thought that it might be a wood mouse yet they were all grass snakes slithering through dense, dead brambles that had been piled up in the wood and in a hedgerow on the trail.

Conclusion; To spot grass snakes your ears are a better detector than your eyes -- a bit like a barn owl perhaps.

P.S. I did try to photograph them, but they were too quick or simply out of focus to show you here.