This year we’ve started a project to photograph and identify our adders and find out a bit more about these fascinating creatures. Every adder has a unique pattern on the back of its head, although some are a little more distinctive than others, and we're trying to gather photos of each individual and create a 'passport' highlighting their distinguishing features. By recognising them individually we can start to learn a bit more about our population in terms of numbers, age, distribution and movements. We’re making progress already…
The adder that we've been seeing on adder alley has been one of the first to emerge over the past few years. He is one of the biggest adders that we have seen! It is usually the females who are larger but the black zig zag markings and early emergence confirm that he is a male. We’ve now tracked back and found photos of him from 2008 when he was already an adult so he’s at least 12 years old. Adders can live up to 30 years in the wild so hopefully we’ll be seeing him for many years to come. He is AA1 but has been nicknamed ‘Big Al’. On Thursday this week he was photographed by one of our volunteer wildlife walkabout leaders looking very smart indeed - he has recently sloughed (shed his skin).
At the other end of the scale we’ve seen one tiny pencil-sized adder who is one of last summer’s hatchlings. We managed to take a photo so we’ll be keeping track of it - we don’t know yet whether it is male or female.
Photo by Rob King
Whilst the background colour of adders can be variable it is the colour of the zig zag markings that will tell you whether it is male or female - in males the zig zags are always black and in the female brown. This colouration develops as they get a little older and you can't tell with the juveniles who have lovely ginger-brown colouration.
In March it was mainly the males who had emerged and could be seen basking but the females are now out and about too, although I generally find them to be a little more secretive. Some of the males have warmed up sufficiently to be quite active and also to have sloughed – shed their skin. They are now looking particularly bright and splendid with jet-black zig zags on a silver-grey background. . Now is the time to keep a look out for shed skins, dancing males or mating pairs.
One of the females – U17 – seems to have made herself at home in the minibeast mansion towards the top of the zig zag paths where she has attracted the attention of two males – U11 and U18. We hadn’t seen these two males before which suggests that there might be more hotspots or hibernacula on the reserve that we’ve not yet located.
Photo by Anna Allum
One of our visitors reported plenty of activity on adder alley on a warm day in April seeing two adults and 8 youngsters. This brings us to a total of 24 different adders seen so far this year – and we have photos of most of them now!
If you do take photos of adders on the nature reserve, please do share them with us - email them in to pulborough.brooks@rspb.org.uk - and let us know where and when you saw it. It is always exciting to take photos of wildlife, especially of creatures like adders, but do always remember that the welfare of the wildlife must always come first so please ensure that you are not creating any disturbance.
Some of the areas that our adders enjoy basking in are closed to visitors to ensure they do not get disturbed but we do invite you to join us on one of our special 'Snakehunt!' events when we do go a little more 'off piste' to search for all 4 of our species of reptiles.