Winter storms and Spring Adders

      The weather on the south coast was decidedly chilly today with intermitant wintery Hail storms driving in on brisk south westerly winds,  During one such storm the hail was the size of marbles and settling an inch or so on the ground as can be seen in the image below which was taken between Trewavas Head and Porthleven, 

So this is hardly the time you would expect to see adders out to bask in the sun to warm their blood, But the fact is that between the storms the sun did come out for quite long periods and the adders being past masters at selecting south facing slopes that are protected from onshore winds came out along with it,

The first adder I found was curled in a classic spiral to retain its existing body heat while seeking the suns rays to increase it,

The second was about a meter away from the first and curled up tightly to the side of granite for warmth and wind protection,  I worked on these two adders for around twenty minutes using a 500mm prime lens at a working distance of 3.5m so as not to disturb them and I was a little surprised then the first one sighted started to move in the direction of the second,  The two appeared to be old friends and quite prepared to coil up together as another means of retaining their existing body temperature while presenting me with an excellent dual adder opportunity as in the images below.

I believe these two adder to be male but it is now about the right time for female adder to be emerging from hibernation with a view to mating to produce this years young so I intend to keep my eye on this area hoping to record the event again this year,  A cold sometimes wet but interesting day!