A friend PMd yesterday and suggested I scribe a few words on how I became interested in the hobby, might be interesting to hear how you all started out too….Hmmm, so as normal Ill go first...here goes………………Around about 1969/70 I clearly remember walking through Salisbury (SW England) with my parents and happening upon a pet store…in the window was a small tank with what I can only guess was a garter snake or similar…There are snippets that I remember from my dim and distant youth but this particular scenario is and has remained clear as crystal…”Mum, can we get it?”…”Ask your Father!”…”No!”…that was pretty much it for me as a very young chap – As we all know, what you can’t have, you must have…I used to watch what rudimentary programmes existed on reptiles and nature in general…then lo and behold and a few years later…Dad turned up with a grass snake he’d caught whilst at work…he gifted it to me…I’m guessing circa spring/early summer 1973/4 – and that was it, completely hooked in every possible way – That particular animal was a good sized female and she used to live in my room through the summer months….she laid a clutch of eggs (that all perished through lack of husbandry know how and sheer ignorance back then)…however, there was my love born…I remember also, towards the tail end of summer being encouraged to release her by Dad…it was not a happy day….Anyway from that day onwards, any and every opportunity to get out and conduct a little field herping was very much on the cards. School summer holidays were long drawn out affairs back then, I’d leave the house early in the morning and not turn up again until early evening and almost every day…you’d always find me wondering the marshes or local heathland for lizards, slow worms, grass snakes, adders, newts, frogs, toads…just whatever was around… happy days indeed! That then was my initial draw into herping and I remain as passionate now as I was starting out…fortunately for me, my own enduring passion will not end with me, Jack has inherited the herping gene and it wouldn’t be possible to maintain our collection without his steadfast dedication…lucky me!! :) OK, so, now you know – that’s how it all started for me…but what about you?? How did you all get bitten by the herping bug???
Posted on: Thu, 28 Nov 2013 15:19:15 +0000
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