Today I made a trip to my closest (known) population of Vipera berus. I arrived in fog and no sun which was a big contrast to the previous few days of full sun and high temps but due to this the snakes had not yet had chance to warm up. The first two males emerged from the hibernacula around 9:45 and stayed basking until around 10:30. I had chance to watch them bask, and to take a few photos in this time (all photos are in-situ);
I moved on to another area where I have found adders in 2010 and 2009, but none last year. After waiting for a Zootoca to re-emerge (which it did not) I saw this male, a new individual for me; he seemed not to take much notice of me as I took a few more photos. He did slither off but re-emerged 10 minutes later, so I was able to watch him for 30 minutes. Over this time, as he warmed up in the sun, he became more and more restless and progressively moved more of his body into the shade until he was all under.
At this point I left and photographed a greenish male Zootoca who allowed a very close approach (<10cm).
Clouds came as I photographed the lizards which allowed M14 to return to basking;
All in all, not a bad morning. I imagine there will be some updates over the next few weeks as I will be following the adders around my area for a final-year university research project.
As you can see the males are already in the sloughing stage (milky eyes) so they should be bright and colourful within a week or so, when I hope to be able to photograph breeding activities; perhaps a bit too ambitious to hope for the dance of the adders again, but you never know!