LIZARD: escaping motorbikes and cats

IT IS nice to know that sensitive wildlife areas are to get better protection, as confirmed in a recent Queen's Speech.

Nice, because when I lived beside one, you could often barely hear yourself think for idiots on scrambler motorbikes churning it up.

There was no doubt they knew it was a designated SSSI (Site of Special Scientific Interest) but, basically, they didn't give a toss.

As far as they were concerned, this nice piece of heathland was the perfect place to perfect their 'wheelies' and burn rubber.

Beneath their wheels, however, rare sand lizards, smooth snakes and adders were trying to eke out a precarious existence.

I have no doubt some were killed or driven off as a result - which is why I felt like cheering every time one of these idiots toppled off his motorbike. Unfortunately, as often occurs in these cases, police attempts to get the vandals to go elsewhere only resulted in the problem escalating.

Riding a motorbike down those dirt tracks just made each little twerp in the saddle appear more daring and heroic to his mates.

I must confess, dark thoughts about stretching bungee rope across the motorcyclists' favourite routes did cross my mind.

But common sense prevailed.

After all, those heathland creatures had suffered enough without having a great lump of crumpled twit on top of them.

Even so, the idea of seeing one of these masked Darth Vaders being 'twanged' backwards through a gorse bush did appeal.

I never actually saw an adder on the heath in the six months or so I lived beside it, though there was plenty of evidence they were about.

I did spot a smooth snake which is thinner than an adder and even rarer.

I also had the opportunity to study slow-worms which, despite the name, are really legless lizards.

Like lizards, but unlike snakes, their eyes boast eyelids.

My favourite creatures were the perky sand lizards, the males in particular beautifully marked with bright green flanks and striped backs. On occasion, my partner's cat would bring one of these into the house and present it to her the way cat's do - something she never appreciated properly in my view, especially if she was in bed at the time.

The cat never ate these lizards or their cousins, the common lizard, which it also hunted.

Instead, it would just bring them in and play with them till they were exhausted, dead, or had escaped by leaving their still wriggling tails behind. A neat trick, that.

My own local wildlife trust, the Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust is responsible for looking after 88 nature reserves, half of them SSSIs.

"The Trust has listed 100 key threatened species within each of the three counties, which it is trying to protect," said a spokesman.

"Each one is in danger. It either used to be common in the Chilterns or Thames Valley region and has suffered recent dramatic population decline, or is already a rare species in need of special protection."

If my own experience is anything to go by, achieving that special protection is never going to be easy.

Not until some threatened species learn to deploy bungee rope themselves.

Or even Semtex.