On days when I don’t feel like getting my hands dirty in the leaf litter, and I’m walking in that direction, I’ve increasingly been turning my attention to one of my local parks, as I find all manner of creatures on the park’s roadside railings (as witnessed by my recent posts: Vapourer cocoon and eggs, 2 January, and Lesser thorn-tipped longhorn beetle, 4 January). Snails are also frequent finds; presumably they don’t mind the exposed conditions and the frequent rain, and I guess they find the surface of the railings easy to slide along. So far, I’ve found four species there …

Wall snail (Balea perversa) (also known as Tree snail)

White-lipped snail (Cepaea hortensis)

Brown-lipped snail (Cepaea nemoralis)

Discus rotundatus

Oh, and if you’re wondering about the title of this blog, apparently ‘walk’ is the correct, if somewhat ironic collective noun for snails.