Finally an Adder!

[MartinGardner]

For about 5 years, every summer I have been looking for Adders, walking miles and studying where to find them on excellent sites such as this one, at the weekend it all paid off.
I think this is a female, not sure so it would be good if someone could let me know.
Everyone I know thought I was nuts wandering off at all hours and coming back glum and empty handed, but finally finding one, the hairs stood up on the back of my neck and I'm so happy, now I know what I'm looking for and realise that it's not enough to go where you think they'll be, I got this by sitting for about 20 minutes staring at the undergrowth where I thought I'd seen a tail and sure enough after my silence, super camouflaged out the depths of the brambles (she?) came.
I'm going to go back as I think I should be able to get a better picture than this, watch this space!

[kathateria]

Cool.
I always wondered what they looked like

[dampflippers]

Well done Martin!
The only one I have seen was on a guided walk with my local reptile and amphibian group.
If you have an interest, you might want to join your local group:
Local Groups - ARGUK | ARG UK

[GCN lova]

i think it is a female and well done as i have never seen one

[marvin]

hi

congratulations. now you have your eye in you'll probably find loads!

the colour of the zigzag pattern is a better indicator of sex than the general colour as both males and females can be brown. this one has a black zigzag which indicates a male.

cheers
tim

[ViperaBerus]

It's definatley a mature male. The colouration, patternation and eye gives it away as post breeding colours.

[Za]

Congratulations Martin and welcome to WAB, I know the feeling all too well, I spent ages looking for them as well, and finally found a dead one on the road so I knew I was definitely in the right area to find them.
Then it was just a matter of patience and perseverance before I found my first live one.
Za

[Kayleigh]

Well done, and welcome to wab.

Well done..

I have only ever seen one in Cornwall in a drystone wall.
I was heavily pregnant at the time 7 months and very large, walking down a stony path it was really hot and sunny I saw a movement in the wall and more movement further up and realised the two were the same thing I didn't know what snake it was but had zigzags and looked it up and found it was an adder..
I was really chuffed I had seen one.

[APC]

A path just beyond the boundary to my site is covered in them, almost like that part in Raiders of the Lost Ark where there's a carpet of snakes. Well, I say that, but I looked today and didn't see any, but it was about 2pm and so not really an idea time. I'll have another look earlier on when I get a chance. If there are still loads there I'll let you know where. Last year in the space of about 30 minutes we had found about 20 including a melanistic ones.

[MartinGardner]

Thank you all for your replies, Im delighted to be involved with this forum, seems a very friendly place.
I sort of picked a field that looked promising and have spent many many hours wandering around as quietly as possible looking for adders, in the search, I've stumbled upon deer,badgers, green lizards and regularly see a fox, I was almost upon the point of giving up but about a month ago found an adder slough on the very spot where I saw this one, I think the image portrays how hard they are to spot but this one shows it even better:

Hopefully, I'll spot him again tomorrow if the weather is right and upload a much better image with a longer lens.
Thanks for the info on sex as well, my 5 year old niece and nephew are going into school with the slough and the picture for show and tell so the more info the better.
M