Two hours and forty-two minutes. A reasonable time. Not the quickest by any means, but this was not a day for haste; today was meant for reflection, it was to be savoured and made the most of. It was the last good day of the year.

A hundred or so acres to survey around the London Wetland Centre. Reclaimed reservoirs and managed habitat nestled against the Thames, passed by university rowing crews and pleasure boats. Their shouts and cries accompany any trip down the remote east path, masking my swearing and cursing as the vegetation, grown wild as the year progressed, fought to bar the way ahead. Heathrow-bound jets and helicopter traffic rumbled above me. Over- and underground train whistles mixed with sirens pierced the air. In summer these sounds competed with chattering martins, screaming swifts and the rattling of warblers who filled the reeds and also called this place their home; without them the sky seems quiet and chilling.

I had shied away from the centre for years, displaying the London indifference to any attraction; it’ll be there next week, or the week after . . . It can wait. That first visit – the year now hazy, but the clear, cold day not – a council-estate life forgotten within moments of entering. The concrete crumbling on each visit, allowing room to learn and see new things. Walks, talks, events, I went to them all, gradually discovering more. I bought binoculars and the long forgotten joy of photography bloomed again.

As others looked skyward, I looked down and saw basking lizards. I would lie close to them for minutes, hours at times, to take pictures and establish some level of trust. More than once a passer-by would think I had met some terrible fate as I lay still on the ground, enquiring if I was OK. My solitary world was opened up, the fascinating little animals my release, talking gently to them as I took portraits.

I can’t remember exactly how, or even when, I ended up with a name badge. I had fallen in with staff and volunteers due to my frequent visits and knowledge of lizard locations. I dabbled with some events and helped out where I could, overcoming my dislike of humans. One day I chanced upon friends armed with a clipboard: ‘We’re doing a reptile survey, want to join us?’ They may even have explained the risks – nettles, biting ants, mud, brambles, electric fences, cows and more – but I had heard all I needed.

A map showed the refugia dotted around the centre: thirty-eight pairs of them, one tin, the other a square of roofing felt. They were mainly far from prying eyes, over-inquisitive hands and disturbance. Their positions soon became fixed in my mind, the routes automatic, the paths my own. A lone meandering to find reptiles – and myself, at times.

The season started in April, with weekly surveys until the end of June, and had begun again in September. Throughout the year, weather beat the felts and tins down; they became blockaded by nettles and brambles, blanketed by leaves and fallen fruit. Two survey points were gone now, choked by thick, thorny vines streaked with ballooned gossamer, full autumnal black fruits shining in the low sun, taunting, waiting for early winter migrants.

Regulars were missing too. That dark female slow worm under E1A, curled in a hollow every week until one visit when the survey sheet was empty and has remained so. I hope she is OK.

Then there was the long girl under the tin at A2. Her tail intact, unlike many on site. She was swollen and lethargic after the summer break, heavier the following survey and last week she was gone. The felt next to her regular spot was lifted to reveal a mass of bronze and metallic black strands of spaghetti, curled together, making a count tricky. Staying immobile long enough for us to spot nine of them and then bursting in every direction for the grass, proving one of the first things I was taught about these reptiles: they’re neither slow nor worms. This week the number was up to eleven, with five more under the tin, but still without the mother. She may have headed to winter quarters now, or to feed up beforehand. The young were on their own from the start, scale replicas of the parents, tiny blinking eyes and notched tongue, pure instinct driving them. I always hoped to see these new arrivals the following year, to greet them after their first hibernation. I worried about broods born so late.

Some of the common lizards had shown up only in the last weeks too; clusters of deep bronze, jewels, not much larger than a thumbnail, huddled on sun-warmed wooden bridges, posts and benches, blissfully ignored by passers-by who, like me years before, didn’t know the little creatures existed, let alone in London. My fingers were crossed for them in the months ahead.

Grass snake hatchlings had been seen in early September. Tiny, no thicker than a bootlace, full of tricks already; playing dead, musking and hissing. A few inches of comical theatrics that would grow to be the UK’s largest reptile. Now, the scent of their musk remained a heady memory to last through the months of hibernation, to be refreshed in the spring. The smell would stay on your skin for days, no matter how hard you scrubbed.

The picnic area provided a good spot to finish the paperwork, a tin and felt hidden nearby. The benches quiet now, allowing time to write and think of past months as well as those ahead, when there would be nowhere to hide.

The pen hesitated. The numbers double, triple checked and then totalled.

In the office, the folder was closed for the last time this year. A stack of survey sheets, crumpled in places, wrinkled from rain, streaked with mud, were the evidence of all the hours and miles walked. The name badge removed. It was hibernation time.

Laurence Arnold, 2016