Adders Mating!

As mentioned previously, I spend a lot of up close and personal time with our snakes, including the adder. Saying this, there are times when they need their space and during the mating season, I stay well back and respect the fact that they are very sensitive and secretive creatures.
While they are mating I photograph them from a distance that doesn't disturb them. The only draw back to this is that there is usually grass and reed in between them and my camera, so this inevitably ends up in the shot!

Here we have two mating adders. You can easily tell the female from the male due to her size and brown colour. She is also the same snake, which is featured in the grass snake pic below.

Female adders, like the female grass snakes grow much larger than the males and I have found some truly magnificent specimens while surveying the Forest of Dean for them.
The largest female adder I have found and photographed was approx 80cm and was very bulky, she was tucked under a small tree with gorse all around to shelter and protect her. Very beautiful snake and I will post her portrait soon.



Rob