Adders

While photographing the adders dancing, I managed to take a few pictures of them on their own too. Above is my favourite, and one I have been after for a long time. You have to be very lucky, right place right time, and this year I was. 

While dancing, one of the adders stopped and went under the tile shelter. He came out the other end, and was moving his mouth in a way that I though he would open it up wide. They often do this after eating, to realign their jaw, so maybe during the tussle with another male he knocked it slightly and wasn't comfortable. 

I ha put my camera down at this point, and was talking to my brother watching on the outside, but saw the above out the corner of my eye. Luckily, I was in there with them and laying down. Lucky I had my macro lens on as I was quite close. Lucky he faced me at a nice angle while he "yawned" Very lucky that on this photo nothing was in the way... I have several others in the sequence, but each one has a blade of grass in front of his head!

A few others I quite liked, above and below of one of our males... actually I think that is one each of both our males. Then further down the darker female curled up in the logs. 

Side on female.

Facing the camera.

And again, but wit a male writhing over her. Shows nicely the contrast difference between the males and females.

Thanks for looking :-)

Dancing Adders

A couple of weeks a go now our adders 'danced'. This is such an amazing thing to see, and I have been lucky enough to see it here a the Centre for several years now. It is always one of the signs of Spring for me, something I always look forward to observing, and an experience I enjoy immersing myself in by just laying in the enclosure with them... watching, photographing and being absorbed by the beauty of it.

This 'dance of the adders' is a ritual battle between rival males, competing over a nearby female for a mate. If you want to know more about it, have a look at our BWC blog where I go in to a bit more detail and even have a short video showing some of it in action.

These are just a few photos from this years experience. Despite photographing this for many years now, you always see new things and end up with different photos. Above is my favourite from this season... two of our males dancing almost on top of one of our females, with her not looking too impressed at all.

As well as them dancing, I took the chance to get a few portraits of them while they were busy being distracted with other things! I will share a couple of these next week, including one I am particularly pleased with.

The dance is over for this year now, a lot of lucky visitors managed to see it over the bank holiday weekend, and a very lucky photography group who were here on perhaps the best day for them dancing.

They have since mated, and so possibly some young adders later in the year. Time will tell.

Thanks for looking :-)

Yellow Neck Mice

The Centre continues to be busy, and we have new keepers training up and new animals arriving and being born too. I have a few odds and ends photos to share later this month, and also a little post about our new arrivals when they go out on display. For now though, here are a few photos of our yellow neck mice that I took last week.

Our mice and voles are doing very well at the moment, breeding and displaying well, and our yellow necks in particular always seem to be out and active. The slightly greyer ones in these pictures are of the youngsters or adolescents... as they mature they will get the more 'ginger/golden' hue in their fur.

This one is my favourite in the beautifully shaped bit of wood, and a few others I was pleased with below. I still haven't got one with the tail nicely in the photo too... so keep trying I guess :-)

Thanks for looking :-)