I must admit that photographing Adders was not high up on my priority list, I think anything that slithers is not necessarily my goto thing, however, daughter number 2, Ava, likes snakes, I don’t know why or where this fascination has come from but she loves them.

Anyway this photograph is the latest on our visits to see Adders at Hatfield near Doncaster, the visits started as I wasn’t prepared to let her have a pet snake, firstly I’m not so sure on having things I consider wild as pets but secondly I also had visons, well nightmares, of it getting out one night and Dad (me) having to try catch it when it didn’t want to be caught.

The image was taken last weekend, 23/04/2024, we’d arrived at Hatfield late – well a lot later than we had planned – and we’d searched the usual places with little to no luck, we’d decided to trey one more area before heading back home deflated -even I was a little disappointed with not seeing a snake!!!

At the end of the run we were on, we stopped and I’d just said come on then lets head off home as there was nothing to see, when I looked down at a silver birch log and low and behold, curled up below it was an Adder staring back at me. I quietly told Ava to stand still, she immediately thought she had a snake near by and panicked a little before I said look at the silver birch log there’s a snake.

Now it was at this point we both raised our cameras and started to take a few pics, well I say we I actually mean Ava as my camera wouldn’t focus, somehow I’d managed to alter the minimum focus of the lens to 6m to infinity and with the snake being around 2m away things were not going well. By the time I’d realised what I had done the snake had enough of posing and slithered off, honest I wasn’t cursing my lucky nor Ava gloating at the fact we’d only seen one snake and she’d got the picture.

Anyway walking a few steps further back from where we came from, I saw another silver birch log on the floor and then in the bracken caught a glimpse of the snakes back in this picture, I rubbed my eyes as I wasn’t sure if it was a snake and then told Ava to look across to see if she thought it was a snake or not, she looked, but couldn’t see it, so brave dad (you have to look brave in front of kids) took a few steps closer and pointed at what I thought was the snakes back and we both agreed it was.

Manoeuvring around we found the shot that is in the image, the snakes head just peering out through the bracken and I must admit I was in awe at how well hidden it was, it was amazing to see.

If you ever get chance get yourselves across on an Adder hunt but just be careful as they are masters of disguise especially in bracken.