On a hot summer’s day, you may be really lucky to find a slow worm basking on a heated rock, warm patio slab or on a garden path in the sun. Slow worms are the secret wonder of a wildlife garden and a real privilege to behold. To see these mysterious wonders is a real and rare treat, because these legless lizards are generally pretty secretive, preferring to shelter beneath piles of logs, corrugated iron sheets, under tiles and below wooden planks in a quiet spot in your garden. At first glance, slow worms resemble small, thin snakes, but they are in fact neither slow nor worm and actually legless lizards. Adults are a bit longer than an average runner bean and much thicker, more like a broad bean pod in girth. If you find them in your garden they are no threat at all. Slow worms are completely harmless; they do not bite or sting or bite. These gentle, sentient creatures are great garden bug busters, with a diet rich in insects and invertebrates including slugs and snails.

Iridescent

Slow worms are not slow, they can move pretty fast or when threatened, they freeze stock still in the hope (perhaps) that you may pass them by. Their skin is soft and smooth and silky and there really is nothing scaly or creepy about slow worms. They are the softest coppery pink, with golden brown tints and bright, black eyes (that actually blink). Their bodies shimmer in the sunlight, with an iridescent mottled pattern, like an intricate, highly crafted piece of glazed ceramic or finely etched and patterned metal. Slow worms have the incredible capacity to shed their tails when caught by a predator. The still wriggling, separated tail tip is designed to distract the predator momentarily, allowing the lizard to escape from its grasp and escape. Amazingly slow worms can actually regrow a new tail.

Safe shelter

Wild and natural gardens are the perfect place for these beautiful creatures to breed and feed. Radiator rocks, dry stonewalls, log piles and compost heaps are a good winter and night den for these cold-blooded creatures.

Slow worms hibernate and start to emerge in March and April from their winter slumber. They mate in May and June. A slowly decomposing heap of compost provides a warm, sheltered and food rich place to raise the young. Leave it as undisturbed as possible so that these creatures can shelter safely.

The female slow worm doesn’t lay eggs, she gives birth to live, thin, wriggling offspring in late summer, which will feed on garden bugs and beasts in preparation for the winter ahead.

How to help slow worms

Our gardens are a vital habitat for these shy and reserved creatures.