I couldn’t tell how long this adder was, but coiled up it only covered the same area of ground as a beer mat. But in reality they average a little over half a metre in length, with the longer specimens only reaching up to 80cm. People perhaps expect adders to be bigger than they are because of their notoriety as Britain’s only venomous snake. And just to complicate matters, adders can also be jet black! Males TEND to be cream or grey, with a black zig zag, whereas the females tend to be brown or red, with a brown zig zag. The colours & patterns work as camouflage. It’s actually a smooth, shiny, legless (and harmless) lizard that has a thing for compost heaps.Īdders, however, are easily identified by the distinctive zig-zaggy pattern along their backs from head to tail, and they have obvious large scales.
It’s not a worm, but neither is it a snake. The only other creature you’re likely to confuse with adders in Scotland is the slow worm. That said, recent survey data suggests that the (harmless) grass snake may be moving north into Dumfries & Galloway as our climate gets milder. There are two other species in Britain, the grass snake and the smooth snake, but they’re both found south of the border. It’s an easy identification to make as it’s Scotland’s only snake. I walked back up the hill and there, sat right in the middle of the road all coiled up, was an adder. I screeched to a halt so violently that my sunglasses fell off my head, tumbled into a ditch and sent one of the lenses flying. I wasn’t hurtling down the track but the ground was none the less speeding past. The kind of idyllic spring day that you can’t help smiling at. It was late afternoon, warm, sunny, and with no wind. A sad sight, yes, and naturally I’d rather have seen a live one, but a dead one was still interesting.Īlmost a year later, just a couple of weeks ago in fact, I found myself biking in Perthshire, exploring the sublime countryside around Lochan Oisinneach Mor and Loch Ordie near Dunkeld. In fact I didn’t see anything else remotely snake-like until last year in Glen Tromie. And nor did any other subsequent walks or glens elsewhere in Scotland over the next 11 years! That was one of the very first hillwalks I did in Scotland and, at the time, I think I honestly believed that every subsequent walk up a Cairngorm glen would yield adders. Inside the structure, on a large stone, was a dark grey adder.Įxcitedly, I fumbled for my camera but in the space of a few seconds it had slithered off, hissing, and was gone. I’d chosen a quiet pathless route up to Carn Bhac and decided to walk straight through a shieling, over its low walls. Until recently, the only live snake I’d ever seen in Scotland was a fleeting glimpse along the Allt Connie, near Inverey in 2003. Only my 2nd adder in 12 years, at Loch Ordie in Perthshire
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