Adders!

[Callophrys]

I finally got out to try my new Canon 7d Mark2 today, and was lucky enough to find two Adders (a male & female I think), on the North Yorkshire Moors. They weren't exactly posing photogenically, but I was just happy to find them! Taken with a Canon 300mm f4L.

Thanks for looking,

Dave

Adder 5913a by Dave O'B, on Flickr

Adder 5923a by Dave O'B, on Flickr

Adder 5932a by Dave O'B, on Flickr

Adder 5941a by Dave O'B, on Flickr

 

[Effjay]

The first is the pic of the bunch for me, but that's a great find!!

 

[Gremlin]

Wow fantastic find and captures, beautiful creatures.
You did well there

 

[Testudo Man]

Some great Adder images here, well done and yes, the 1st 2 images are of a female.
If both snakes are of adult age/size, then the female would have been larger than the male.

Adders (Vipera berus) very rarely pose for "photogenically clean images", i prefer to see images of the snakes in their natural habitat. Sometimes you will get lucky, and find a snake out in the open, but most of the time, they will be amongst vegetation.
There are many Adder images out there, showing the snake on a rock or log(with a perfect clean background) these images are generally "set up shots", whereby someone has placed the snake out in the open, to get that perfect image!

 

[Callophrys]

Thanks for the comments!
Paul, the female was slightly smaller than the male, so still a bit of growing to do.

Cheers,

Dave

 

[Testudo Man]

Thanks for the comments!
Paul, the female was slightly smaller than the male, so still a bit of growing to do.

Cheers,

Dave

Going by the colouration of your 1st snake, it certainly appears to be female?...But several males do sometimes have that female/brownish/reddish look about them.
So colouration can be misleading!...A more accurate sexing, would be the size and shape/tapering of the adders tail section...Short stumpy/fat for a female, an longer/thinner for the male.

Male Adders generally emerge a couple of weeks before the females, and since February was quite cold this year, so for many Adder enthusiasts, its been a late start in the year for sightings...but in previous years, i have seen females emerge in early March.