Dance of the Adders, 2016

"Dance of the Adders" - 2016

Our adders finally started dancing just over a week a go. A little later than usual, but then they emerged from hibernation earlier as well. They put on a brief display on the Friday, and then followed this up with some good action on the Saturday and Sunday, much to the enjoyment of many of our visitors!

During the past week I have not seen any "dancing" at all, and now the temperatures have dropped again that could be it for the year. Brief, but beautiful! That being said, I do remember about three years a go something similar happening with temperature drops just after they started, and they continued where they left off a couple of weeks later when it warmed up again... so who knows.

Anyway, here are a few pics from last weekend...

And I will end with a portrait... you can't beat a good portrait!

Thanks for looking :-)

Snakes and Martens

Drogo, Pine Marten

Our busy summer continues at the Centre. All good for us of course, but means less time with my camera. However, that time I have had I have been very pleased with what I have managed to take. 

Above is one of my favourite portrait photos of Drogo, our newest male pine marten at the Centre. Isn't he a handsome chap?

Bonnie and Clyde have been busy eating the plums that have fallen in to their enclosure, so I thought I would try the others on them too. Seems they all like them, and Drogo in particular couldn't get enough of them :-)

It was difficult to get any good photos of him eating them, but fun none the less just watching him go about his business.

The other time I took my camera out was to witness something I have never seen before... a female adder give birth to her live young. We have had adder babies born here in the past, but never have I seen the actual birth. This year I did though, a first and quite possibly a last, and by chance I had my camera with me. The photos are not great as she was in an awkward place in the enclosure, but just seeing it was enough for me and I didn't want to get too close and disturb her.

This is seconds after birth with the membraneous egg sac still visible covering the little neonate.

You can see how small he is next to mum, and perhaps more so on the sand in the photo below.

They can have up to double figures in a single birth, and we know of at least six that were born last week. If you want to hear more about it or see more photos have a look on the BWC Blog, tabbed above under the banner, and check back in the archives about a week from the date of this post.

Feisty little things, but great fun to watch and photograph.

Thanks for looking :-)

Adders

Adder Neonate

What with the Samsung business, and the dancing adders, I have a lot of catching up of photos to share with you. Today I am posting a few adder pics, non dancing, from the last few weeks. We can then take a break from the adders, and I will share the other photos including some bluebell ones next week.

Above is one of my favourite photographs I have taken so far this year. It is of a young adder neonate resting up next to mum. Nothing maternal here at all... they youngsters are independent from the moment they are born, just resting here to gain some extra warmth, but it really shows off how small they are. The mother is blurred, but you can tell it is an adult adder, and allows the little done to stand out... you can see the size difference of his scales next to mums gigantic scales!

This is a photograph I tried to get last year, and failed miserably! Fisheye of an adder coming right towards the lens. I am pretty pleased with this one... Ideally I would of liked a better background, but had to go on when the snake decided to investigate the lens. The light is at the wrong angle too for this to be a real stand out image, but again I could only go on as and when he decided to check me out.

A few record shots now, nothing special, but shows off some nice things. Above is an adder just starting to shed. You can see the old skin peeled off around the head... After this photo I had to go off and talk about one martens, and expected him to still be shedding when I got back. But he didn't hang about... the skin was gone!

To see the difference before and after, above is one os our sandy males just before shedding, and below one just after!

You can see how much more vibrant and vivid they are when they have shed, and why people always here me saying "I'm waiting for them to shed before taking pictures"

Just before shedding their eyes cloud over, giving an almost blue glow, before clearing up again and then the shed begins. It is just like a sock coming off. Usually the skin is peeled off in one, from head to tail, and comes off inside out.

This is a photo from last year, but you can see the complete adder skin... the markings on the skin, and even the eye caps if you look close enough! Adders, like all snakes, can't close their eyes, but have a scale over the eye to protect it!

So after shedding and dancing, next up is mating. Above is a photo of a male and female. You can see the male is quite a bit smaller than the female.

It is quite easy to tell the difference between the two in colour terms too. Generally, the males show more contrast between their base coat and pattern. So usually, the males are a silvery or sandy colour with a very vivid black zig-zag marking. The females show less contrast, being more of a brown, copper colour with a dark brown zig-zag marking.

This gets a bit trickier when the males are shedding, as you have seen above, they look a little like females. But when you get the hang of it, you can see the marking still looks dark on the shedding male, the overall colouring is much duller because of shedding, and when fully grown they will be smaller than a female.

It is a rare sight to see our adders mating, but we were privileged to see it a lot this year. Females may mate with many males over the course of a few days, and then remarkably can store the sperm for several years. So even though they have mated, we may not have youngsters this year. Likewise, if we have youngsters in a couple of years time it may be from this mating this year, and not one next year or the year after!

Even more remarkable, if mated with more than one male, she can decide on which males sperm is used or a mix. Isn't nature remarkable?!.

On closer look you can see one of the males penises, and it has a barb. This is used to "tie" himself in while copulating, making it harder for them to part. And yes, you heard me right... one of his penises... they have two!

They are called the hemipenes, and both will have this barb. Both are active, although they do tend to favour one over the other. So why have two?..

I'm glad you asked... Males will often mate with more than one female over several days, but between each mating they will need a bit off time to "prepare" for the next one. This is technically called the "refractory" period. Now, if they have had enough time, they would normally use the same penis. If however they haven't, then their second penis can come in to play and allow them to mate twice in quick succession. This works because where as most animals sperm mixes from both testes, the snake hemipenes have one testes for each penis.

Bit heavy I know, but some of you may find that interesting. :-)

What results?.. Baby adders! Aren't they cute?

This was taken this Spring of one of last years neonates. Curled up like this, she is sitting on the ground in an area of approx a milk bottle top. In other words, tiny!

Many snakes lay eggs, but adders are one of a few that give birth to live young... again, this gets complicated... even more so than the mating and two penises, so I will leave it simple and just say they give live birth.

So next up for our adders. Feeding. While dancing the males have no interest in food what so ever. I have fed our females, but the males will be having there first feed this weekend. This photo is from last year.

And to finish up. Another of my favourites of the last few weeks. This is slightly out of focus on the mouth unfortunately, but it is the closest I have got to an image I have been after for years... a Yawning adder right down the lens!

Thanks for looking... Bluebells next :-)

Dance of the Adders, 2015

Dance of the Adders

I will keep this one brief, my past few posts have been a lot of words. I would like to share with you some of my adder dance photos from the past couple of weeks. If you want to read more about it, then please click on this link... BWC Blog: Dance of the Adders... to hear of my experience in with them a couple of Tuesdays ago.

The first two, one above and one below, are my favourites from this year. Having seen them dance for the last few years now, I have been able to get some lovely photos allowing me to experiment a bit more each year to try and get something a little different. I think these two do that. Above are them dancing in the grass... while taking it I had a feeling it might be quite good, and I am really pleased with how it came out.

Below is with the fisheye. I mentioned last year that I tried to photograph them with the fisheye, and it didn't work out, but I knew how to try differently this year... and this is what I had in mind. Very pleased with this one, but I still think I can get better so next year I may well spend the whole time in there with just the fisheye.

Enjoy the photos, and then at the end are two short videos of our adders dancing this year. At the end of this week I will share a few more adder pics, non dancing, that I took recently and then will give you all a break from adders on this blog and the BWC blog for a while :-)

OK, so here are a couple of videos. The first is a short compilation of a few clips I took, and the second is a couple of slow motion clips.

Thanks for looking :-)

2015: Catch Up

Harvest Mouse on Daffodil

All this Samsung over the past couple of months... I can tell you, it was lovely picking up my old Nikon again. You forget how much you get used to a camera :-) There will lbw a couple more Samsung posts, but that will then pretty much wrap it up... they seem quite happy with what has been done already, despite it not being how it was all originally intended. Oh well, if they are happy, I'm happy :-)

These are a few photos I have been taking outside of the Samsung experience this year. Not much has been done, but I did have a little shoot with a harvest mouse on a daffodil. It didn't go to well to be honest, but I was happy with the photo above. I really like the way the yellow of the petals is reflected on the underside of the mouses chin!

Water Vole

We put a new family of water voles out on our display island a couple of weeks a go. They normally take a little time to settle, and indeed are this time too for three of them, but the fourth is really bold! Often out on the feeding tile with people around watching.

I spend many an evening down there just watching them, and last night David (the owner) joined me. It was nice to just sit there with no camera and watch them all buzzing around and jumping in and out the water.

Baby Adder with Adult

You all know how much of a soft spot I have for adders, and it won't be long till they start dancing! To warm up though I have been watching them the past few days. The above is one of my favourite adder photos to date. A youngster curled up against mum... nothing maternal there, but it show how tiny they are next to an adult.

Baby Adder

A close up of the same neonate. I have seen three at once since hibernation, youngsters that is, and all five adults are now out and in the process of shedding. I would guess they will start dancing within the next week.

Baby Adder

Even from a young age they look quite fierce, but they also look quite cute don't you think?.. No?.. Maybe if you squint, and keep squinting till you can't see them?.. There ya go :-)

Thanks for looking :-)

Favourite photos from last year

Common Dormouse

This blog may have a few new visitors over the coming weeks from a project I am about to start for Samsung. I will announce what that is later this week, but thought I would share some of my favourite photos that I took last year.

For those that are new to looking at this blog, these also reflect quite nicely what my blog is all about. These are perhaps not always what I consider my best photos, but are my favourites. Ones I particularly like for one reason or another. Whether it is because I consider it a good photo, or it reminds me of something that happened, or it shows something that many people rarely if ever see... but due to my position and benefits, I get to see it and so like to share.

So, in no particular order, above is one of a Common Dormouse. Not so common in the UK anymore. I rarely get to photograph these beautiful animals, due to their nature and lifestyle... we don't like to disturb the animals unless we have too. But one afternoon last summer this one was up while we were chaining around her hazel. I took the opportunity to take a few snaps while the keepers were sorting out her home, then we put her back. About twenty minutes of her time as a model, and this was my favourite. Looking through the hazel at the camera.

With this, and the others below, if you search for the animal in the bar below you will see the other photos from each shoot.

Clyde

A classic example of favourite photo. Is it a good photo? To most of you, probably no, but I love it! It shows the connection I have with one of our pine martens, Clyde. I like the expression on his face, and the fact you know it is me because of my tatty ol' crocs. :-)

Those that are new here will soon realise I am quite laid back with my photography. I am an animal person and head keeper first, very much a photographer second. But I do love photography and taking pictures, and it is a great way for me to spend time with the animals I care for. Any photos I get out of that time with them is a bonus, and often I will sit in an enclosure with my camera and never pick it up... just sit there and watch the animals and have fun.

Badger

I enjoy using the light with my photographs too. And often here people complain about bad light, bad weather, any excuse to forgive their photos... Don't get me wrong, of course there are many conditions which are difficult for photography... and some that I don't go out in or try, but in many cases you can use these conditions to get something different. I was talking to someone one afternoon last summer with the sun high in the sky, and they were saying how it is pointless and you couldn't get any decent photo in that light with the harsh shadows. I was trying to explain the above, so took this photo with a high negative exposure and using the shadows to hide half the face.

Many won't like it, and that is fine, but I really do and it has become one of my most popular photos of last year.

Barn Owl in the Evening

Taking the lighting to the extreme, this is one of our barn owls on the reserve in the evening light. It is nice to get some backlit photos of them, and again just messing around I tried to lower the exposure even more to emphasise the golden light. Not sure on this one, sometimes I look at it and like it other times I don't.

Snowy Owl Feathers

I am working on another little, well big actually, side project which probably won't be in a position to announce for a year or so!.. But it has led me to take more "detail" photographs such as feather detail etc. This one above doesn't really show that, but shows some of the patterns you can create with the feather or fur of an animal.

Tawny Owl Grooming

Florence, probably our scruffiest owl, getting ready for a photo shoot. Different behaviour, however simple, is what I love most about an animal.

Red Squirrel

Another example of a "bad" photographic day. It was dark and raining. ISO was set high, aperture low, but again I was happy with this result. Any good blown up for a billboard? No, but for small prints and web use it is fine. Yes there is more noise than a lot of people would like... but I would rather have a noisy image that is sharp than no image at all. This one has actually been used a lot for the centres advertising.

Scottish Wildcat

One of my favourites. A wildcat walking out of the darkness, possibly symbolising them coming back from the brink of extinction? Time will tell...

Mating Adders

Another classic example of what I share on this blog. The photo above is not great at all, but what it shows is incredible. Two of our adders mating. Very rare to see this. Only happens every other year, and usually they go in to cover, as they did this time after a few minutes. But this year they were out in the open for a while, and I was lucky enough that a member of the Centre came and found me to let me know.

I like to share photos of things rarely seen, as I am lucky and privileged to see it myself, I want  you to see it to.

Wildcat Snarl

Above is a bit of a work in progress. I really like it, and it shows one of my benefits. I can of course go in with animals that no one else can, for various reasons... bit obvious with this one I think :-)

I am still trying for that really good snarl and swipe picture, that doesn't show the animal is in an enclosure, but I just don't know if it is possible.

With captive photography you should never tell people it was taken in the wild, but you should still try and make it look as if it could have been. That's what I think anyway... unless you are telling a story.

Wildcat

One of my recent images. A couple of months ago I had a small obsession with the wildcats, and their eyes in particular. Took several images and the above was my favourite.

Adder

I love the adders, especially while they are "dancing" in the spring. I wouldn't really classify any of my dancing shots as my best/favourite last year unfortunately, but I did like a few of my portrait shots I took while experimenting with a macro lens.

The above was my favourite of those, deliberately low aperture to just get those amazing red eyes in focus.

Otter on Ice

One of the very last shots I took last year of the otters on ice. I was trying to get Emmy here to run to me on the ice with the reeds in the background. Didn't work to well, I got one I liked, but the others were not good.

I did get this one though in the same shoot. Closer to me with out the reeds, but i still liked it. Currently have it as my wallpaper on the Mac.

Tawny Owl over Bluebells

Bluebell season of course, and I had to include this photo. My biggest award this year. Ironically not my favourite photo of 2014, far from it, but possibly my most popular and seen so thought I should include it.

Thanks for looking, and more to come this year :-)