Snail - barbeque

I wonder about nature. So many questions that can never be answered and so many happenings that makes me say ‘why?’

We are having an amazing July heat wave in Britain but it is alien to everyone including all of the wildlife. Our heat is unlike anywhere else in the world. It is humid, sticky, heat. It leaves humans feeling like they have been rolled in syrup and animals lay exhausted finding refuse wherever they can. Insects appear to be happy and full of noise and percussion. Birds call sweetly for us to remember to fill their bird baths and their beaks with succulent surprises. Then we have the other creatures. Creatures of wetness and damp, who seek to ooze their way around the soil and plants. Those that leave trails and those who just hide.

So … imagine my surprise when around five-o’clock in the afternoon or should I say early evening, when the sun was still throbbing and bouncing its beams everywhere, I came across a small garden snail that had crawled half up the shed wall. Why wasn’t it on the far side of the shed in the shade? Why wasn’t it under a juicy leaf? Was it trying to bake itself to give a meal to the birds? Did it survive and live another day? I’m not sure . . .

This small garden mollusc is difficult to name as it may be a small version of one of the Roman edible snails. I must admit that I am stumped by the patterning, size and the colour to be able to definitively name it.