Make Hay whilst the Sun Shines

I'll start again with my garden. Yet another first for my garden just recently, this Lesser Redpoll. This is a large crop but you can see what it is. I was really chuffed to see this at the bottom of my garden.

This Hawfinch was a nice find in the Forest of Dean this last week. This is a male bird.

A day out reptile hunting produced some good results. This is a Slow worm, a real contradiction, its called a worm, it looks like a snake, yet its a Lizzard, albeit a legless one.

This one was about 10-12 inches long. You can pick Slow worms up but they excrete a nasty smelly Poo type substance. Unless you have a reason to pick them up It might be best to leave well alone.


I love the tongue poking out on this shot.

The Forest of Dean has a number of areas where snakes can be found. This is a male adder, He is about to shed his skin, you can tell by the colour and milky look of his eye.

This is the famous melanistic Adder, that was featured in the Forest Review newspaper a week or so ago. You can see he's almost completely black. This picture was taken by me this week so he's not suffering too much from fame, although there have been a number of people taking his picture this week so you could say he's being papped.

Just a note of caution, its not a good idea to try and handle an Adder, their bite can be fatal in people with underlying health problems and even if it doesnt kill you, you will certainly know its bitten you.

Neither the Adder nor the Slow worm were harmed in the making of this blog entry.