Adder Action

The weekend provided visitors with some great adder action, or at least some rare glimpses of behaviour not often seen.

Firstly, on Saturday, two of our adders were seen mating. This is rarely observed with snakes, and probably more so with adders... In the ten years I have been here I have never seen it before, so I was extremely grateful when member Peter Trimming came to find me and let me know it was happening.

You can see from the photo above how they actually couple while mating. They were not on view for long, before slipping off in to the grass, but to see some more and quite frankly, better photos of this follow the link on the right to go to our flickr page!

Then on Sunday we saw two of our adders dancing... For those of you that have followed the blog for at least a year or more, you will know how much I look forward to this every year. They were only at it for about a minute before giving up, but both were interested in our second female so hopefully the next few days will see some more dancing.

It can't be guaranteed of course, so don't visit just to try and see this beautiful ritual, but if you do want to try and see it this following week may be a good time to try.