The first talk was from Steve Langham from Surrey ARG who went through the surveys being undertaken within Surrey, Hampshire and Sussex for the rarer reptiles - smooth snake and sand lizard. Some very impressive figures was displayed from the survey programme with over 5,000 records generated over one season. Over 1,000 survey tins have been deployed with a core group of 50 surveyors the Surrey ARG is definitely one of the leading ARG's in the region.

The next talk was from Richard Smith and the Parks Trust over their reptile survey in Milton Keynes. The survey project was inspired further by the Herpetofauna Workers' Meeting this year by Herefordshire Amphibian & Reptile Team's project 'Whats that Snake'. Richard highlighted how the survey was undertaken with training courses for volunteers and effective work with the local media which resulted in many more records from Milton Keynes where previously very few reptile records were known.

The first of two workshops was looking at limiting biases in the collection and collation of survey data - presented by the Green Space for Greater London (GiGL) the meeting was broken up into four groups and all enjoyed the debate and reported back on various issues relating to this important issue with local records and data flow.

After Lunch the next round of talks concerned Non Native Frogs, Unveiling the new ARG UK website, Sliding Scales Campaign and how ARGs could work more effectively with the ARC Trust.

The last workshop was concerned with the hot topic of mitigation and the future of this in the UK. A spirited presentation by Kevin Morgan was followed by four discussions on the main points of how herpetofauna is considered within the mitigation process in planning applications and other projects.

A full write will follow in due course. The meeting was a real pleasure to attend and present at with an opportunity to meet mew people and the main players from the South East Region.

Photos from twitter