It didn’t end up raining yesterday (so I didn’t get a chance to test my dedication to snailing by snailing in the rain). Today dawned cold and dewy.
Which meant I knew I was going to get some gastropod action.
And indeed, I did. There were slugs aplenty on the moist leaves and blades of grass. Owing to the cold (which my fingers don’t especially care for), I lost a few of them that leapt back to the earthy depths, but a good many found their way to the Soapy Bucket of Merciful Deliverance (the same one I prepared yesterday, when the pickings were slim).
Today, there were a bunch of mid-sized snails out, too, many on the higher leaves of the plants they were on. I’m wondering whether this is temperature related (since on warmer dewy mornings I seem to find more snails at lower altitudes).
We’ll have to start tracking altitudes to see if any stable trends emerge. (And yes, once there is a large enough body of data, we’ll start looking at the trends and making graphs and all that good geeky stuff.)
Today’s take: 249 slugs and snails (roughly 2/3 slugs and 1/3 snails) in 35 minutes.
You’re still getting quite a number of them. The numbers have dropped from the first few days, but that’s still quite a few. Perhaps look for a source of infestation?
Finding the buggers higher up means your attempts to breed flying gastropods is having some success. Either that or you’ve found another clew about the retaliatory trebuchet: When it’s ready, they’ll capture you, probably on a warm morning when you’re least expecting it, by leaping on you en mass from the tops of the trees. Hundreds and hundreds of the buggers, in a controlled descent, aiming for whichever bit of you isn’t yet covered with their fellow gastropods.
On the big day, when you’ll have a very personal storm of raining angry snails and slugs, I don’t think a bucket of soapy water will be an effective defence. Nor will a tinfoil hat…